


Viral Love

by Savaial



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hojo is not a simple villain, I am using the ff7 core, Lucretcia is not a goddess, M/M, Not Dirge of Cerberus Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:07:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 40
Words: 55,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5002414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savaial/pseuds/Savaial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hojo needs blood donors in order to defeat Geostigma.  He gets Vincent Valentine.  But, while attempting to defeat the Planet's cancer, Hojo finds himself at the mercy of a red-eyed Turk he can't distance himself from.   And, in the meantime, Vincent gains a new understanding to his own contribution to the tragedy between himself and Mr. and Mrs. Hojo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“No news yet?” I sipped my coffee as I awaited a reply. Abduction team organizers had reputations for short tempers. I dared the gun-toting pipsqueak to even look at me funny. He’d occupy a cell so fast I’d break the sound barrier putting him in it. Shin-Ra was mob rules these days. Without Rufus to keep order, the stronger flourished while the weaker died.

Shin-Ra had always been like that, really. But, Rufus’ mysterious vanishing act had everyone rattled. We all jumped at shadows, waiting for axes to fall.

“No news just yet, sir,” the man said, peering at me nervously from over his shoulder. He didn’t like my standing behind him. “We got a sighting of AVALANCHE at Reactor 17 in Kalm. The abduction team is on route.”

I sighed. Unless the clone made a colossal mistake, an abduction team wouldn’t take AVALANCHE. If I could spare the time, I’d go after them myself. I had too much work to do, however. This mutated version of Geostigma wouldn’t cure itself.

I had only basic ideas about this disease. I knew I couldn’t get it; I couldn’t get any bug, factually. My body burned up infection and viral attacks. But, I didn’t have any other people with Jenova cells to test. Strife and Valentine both had J-cells. I needed them. I needed the whole team. None of them had X2Geostigma; I had that information on good authority from Reeve Tuesti.

I hoped the man never figured out I was his mysterious Shin-Ra contact in lieu of Rufus.

I meant no aggression to anyone, but I didn’t pick sides, either. I stayed with Shin-Ra for the funding, and the pretty toys. I’d never finance all my scientific endeavors as a private citizen. I’d certainly never conquer this syndrome without lots of gil. And, I needed Strife and Valentine, damn it!

Strife had defeated the original Geostigma virus on his own. He probably stood as my best chance. Valentine… I didn’t know if he had immunity because of something I’d done, something Lucrecia had done, or, because of some naturally occurring resistance. I needed an inoculation to prevent the disease, and a cure for those already afflicted.

“Professor?” Pretty Miss Brooks, my latest in a series of assistants, flagged me down on the way to my office. “We got the results from the boffins.” She gave me the file with a wide grin. “Congratulations, sir. The tranquilizer works under any conditions, with any body chemistry, and, in the small dose you were hoping.”

“Thank you, Tina,” I said, returning her smile. She was a nice girl. I didn’t know how she ended up here. “Take the rest of the day off. You’ve waited on these results for nearly forty hours.”

“I don’t mind waiting, sir,” she said, sounding sincere. “It’s a privilege to work for you.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said sternly. “I don’t know where you get that idea.” Tina, so far, had avoided the fate of her predecessors simply by doing her best, and, keeping her nose out of my personal business. I’d had to eliminate five before her. “I’m crazy and cruel, and you know it.”

She nodded solemnly. “But, you’re brilliant.”

Ego soothed, I sighed. I probably wouldn’t kill this one. She had stars in her eyes for science, and I respected that just as much as her honest flattery. “Get gone,” I told her. “Take your boyfriend out. What’s his name?”

“James,” she sighed dreamily. “James Hoke, SOLDIER, second class.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, steering her in the direction of the exit hallway. “Go take James to a showing of Loveless, or, _something_. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay.” She walked away, her steps light with imagined romance.

I felt old around young girls like her. Young men I could pass off as inexperienced men, but young women I could never just pass off. They hit a soft spot.

I could use a nice young man or woman. I’d not had a decent lay in eight months. I’d probably have to go to the Honeybee Inn to get some action, and I hated to resort to over-used dick and pussy. Pussy that saw lots of action felt loose, and a dick treated the same way just felt so mechanical.

I entered my office. A whisper of movement alerted me to the presence of someone else. I had my tranq gun out and firing before the door shut. A man hit the floor face first. I shut the door, and rolled him over with my foot to have a look.

One of Scarlet’s. That made three in two weeks. She’d have to hire better help if she wanted to take me down. Still, the man shouldn’t have been able to get this far. I had orderlies and staff to prevent this.

Hitting my intercom, I called for Robert Argel, my dependable muscle around this place. “Robert?” I asked, waiting.

“Here, sir,” he answered almost immediately.

Good man. He had a bottle and a bonus coming to him for being so available. I got tired of replacing orderlies.

“I have another assassin in my office,” I told him. “Come and remove him, please.”

“Right away, sir.”

I terminated the connection, went to my drinks cabinet, and selected a bottle of apple brandy. Pouring into a clean glass, I sat on the edge of my desk to think.

Rufus, gone four weeks now, and no one knew what had happened to him. The Turks were beside themselves, having no president to protect. Heideggar gave them busy work far below their capabilities. That corpulent idiot, Palmer, ran Public Relations now, and had an agent of New Midgar Alliance on speed dial.

Samuel Quinn threatened to become a giant burr in my butt. Although more centered toward negotiations, he scrutinized all my moves. It seemed the Alliance wanted Shin-Ra compliant to more fiddly stipulations, along with their desire to push fossil fuel. We now had an ethics committee, of all things. And, they found _me_ more ethically questionable than anyone.

As if moral values had anything to do with science! Medicine, especially, required progressive, daring moves, in order to go forward with any speed. I didn’t need some pencil-pushing desk jockey lecturing me on humane methods of scientific exploration.

The brandy tasted good. I appreciated dumb-apples for their piquant flavor.

Robert entered. He picked up the would-be killer, and slung him over one of his broad shoulders. “What do you want done with this one, sir?” he asked politely.

“Throw him in a cell,” I muttered. “He’ll make a good test subject.” I pointed to my liquor cabinet. “Take your pick on the way out.”

“Thank you, Professor Hojo,” Robert said, carrying the brute with him over to my storehouse of alcoholic wares. “Renee’s about to come on shift,” he remarked. “Do you want me to station her outside your office?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Renee was the most intimidating female I’d ever clapped eyes upon. At an easy six feet, she probably weighed in at two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle. She was lean, lithe and aggressive, and she _liked_ me.

Shiva only knew why.

Robert left, and I settled into my desk chair to catch up on paperwork. I loathed paperwork, had always hated it. It seemed stupid to continue filing update documents for administration when Rufus wasn’t here to read them. Scarlet and Heideggar certainly hadn’t the brains to appreciate what I did. Since they now jointly ran the company, I had little choice but to comply.

Renee stuck her head in my office after a heavy series of knocks. “I’m here, Professor Hojo,” she said. “Nobody’s getting past me.” She cracked her knuckles, and grinned, showing startlingly white teeth.

“Lovely.” I nodded to her. “Remind me when it’s lunch time, will you?”

“Sure.” She shut my door. Seconds later, I heard her drag a chair over, and set it right against the heavy aluminum barrier.

I released a sigh. If only the abduction teams had people like Renee…

 

The telephone awoke me. I jerked my head from the desk, and looked blearily at the clock while groping for the infernal ringing. _Three in the morning_. I’d fallen asleep over my calculations. “Yes?” I answered.

“We got them.” The abduction team leader sounded winded. “Wouldn’t have been possible without the tranquilizer guns. I’m flying them in now. Which part of the labs?”

“I’ll meet you at the helipad,” I said, hanging up. Excitement coursed through me. Finally, I had a way to go forward in this quest.

I put my lab coat back on, checked my own tranq gun, and made sure my 454 had a full chamber. I might have to shoot someone on the way. Scarlet and Heideggar were relentless. I’d heard Robert attacking someone close to midnight.

“With me, Robert,” I said, collecting him outside the door. “What did you do with the latest assassin?”

“He’s in a cell right beside the last five,” Robert answered, trotting to keep up with me.

“Good. Tell my pharmaceutical testing team to use him. Our SOLDIERs need better pain killers.” I punched the elevator button. “We’re going to the roof to meet an abduction team. Get on your PHS, and alert the holding facility we have guests coming.”

Obediently, Robert did as I ordered. We got on the elevator, and it began to climb. At the seventy-second floor, I heard an ominous, creaking noise. Cursing myself for a fool, I grabbed the handrail, and climbed atop it quickly. “Get up here,” I said. “We have to get the ceiling panel open, and fast.”

Robert helped me punch through. I climbed up, grabbing Robert’s shoulder and the top of the cable. I’d moved just in time. The car dropped like a stone, leaving me and my orderly hanging from the thick wire. Concentrating on Jenova, I extended a tentacle from my back, and wrapped it firmly around him. “Don’t panic,” I snapped as he began to twist. “I won’t drop you.”

I began to climb. The floor above us seemed very far away, and, though I easily managed Robert’s weight, he’d fainted. I’d have to throw him through the next set of elevator doors. I vowed to get Scarlet, or Heideggar, or both of them, for this. I couldn’t get any work done with their constant attempts upon my life.

I threw Robert. He was heavy enough to break the doors, which allowed me to freely enter the seventy-fourth floor. A group of office people gaped at me and at Robert, who now sat up and groaned. I cuffed his collar, hauled him upright, and dragged him through the knot of curious cubicle-dwellers.

The stairs slowed us down considerably, but I managed to get us to the roof just as the helicopter touched down. The team leader hopped out, and jogged over to me. “They’re starting to come around, but John’s got guns trained on them, and they’re secured,” he informed.

“Good. Break out the stretchers.” I lit a smoke, and called for my own containment team. They’d back me up if these SOLDIER cast-offs caused trouble.

They got the clone out first. He groaned and flopped, his blue eyes uncomprehending. He turned his head, saw me, and closed his eyes again. “Hojo,” he murmured. “What…?”

“Stay still and you won’t feel as dizzy,” I advised. They carried him to the side, and put him down, one man holding a machine gun on him.

“No,” I barked at the man. “He’s not to be harmed, even if he’s escaping. I need him, and, everyone else, alive.”

“But, sir,” the soldier said, looking reluctant to accept a tranq gun from one of my people. “This is _**Cloud Strife**_ , enemy of Shin-Ra!”

“And,” I countered, “possibly the cure for Geostigma. Point that gun at him one more time, and I’ll shoot you myself.” Several members of my containment crew drew their own guns, and leveled them at him, not waiting for compliance.

He took the tranq gun, and, did not look at any of us again.

Next came the clone’s girlfriend. As she was probably the most dangerous of them all, I stepped up to give her a sedative. Her dark brown eyes focused on me reluctantly. Fear, revulsion and dread found a home in her gaze. “You bastard, Hojo,” muttered.

I injected her. “I’m not going to hurt you, or any of your friends,” I told her.

She went to sleep almost instantly.

The next stretcher held my old rival in love. He wasn’t the slightest bit unaware. His crimson gaze fastened on me, and, his gauntlet covered hand curled.  The abduction team had bloodied him in the effort of subduing him. Cuts and bruises decorated his poreless face. I saw a bullet hole in his shoulder,  and one in his chest. He leaked blood.

“Marcus,” I said, waving one of my men over. “Get my surgical nurse out of bed and in the medical lab.” I was furious. I couldn’t have been clearer when telling these abduction team idiots they weren’t to harm the AVALANCHE members. “Triage him,” I further instructed. “He’s taken lead.”

So saying I whirled on the captain of this little excursion. “Who shot him?” I asked.

The man nodded at the one I’d had a disagreement with already. “Foley. Vampire freak tried to rip his throat out.”

I looked at Foley. “He hasn’t a scratch on him. What do you think I gave you the modified tranquilizers and guns for, recreation?”

“Listen, Doc,” the captain said, but I cut him off.

“Doctor or professor; not Doc, you overgrown homunculus,” I drew my gun, turned and blew Foley’s head off. “Disregard my stipulations for abductions in the future, captain, and you’ll join Foley in the Lifestream. I’m not someone you can bully or placate.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said quickly. “But, Professor, the vampire-.”

“He isn’t a vampire. I don’t care what kinds of pulp horror movies entertain you. Now, where are the others?” I saw no more stretchers or people in the helicopter.

“Couldn’t get them, I’m sorry,” he said, turning pale. “The little ninja bitch, the big darkie and the airship captain got away.”

Lovely. Now I had to worry about people breaking into Shin-Ra as well as breaking out. “You’re a miserable failure,” I told him. “Fortunately, I don’t often shoot people for fucking up. Get out of my sight.” The man moved to get Foley’s corpse. “Leave him,” I snapped. “He’s spare parts.”

I whirled and started gathering my people. Marcus stood over Valentine, patiently asking questions that the ex-Turk wouldn’t answer. I jerked him away. “Marcus, did you get Leanne?”

“Yes, professor. She’s on her way.” Marcus reached out, pointing. “Sir, he’s been hit three times. The other bullet is in his thigh.”

“Wonderful.” I looked down at the glaring Vincent Valentine. “I’ll never understand how a Turk got a hero complex. Did he hit you anywhere else?”

Valentine remained mute. I’d expected as much. Still, he worried at his restraints, which weren’t zip ties at all but adamantine clamps. They groaned under his force, threatening to warp. Blood began flowing freely from his various holes.

I measured a dose of sedative for him and met his eyes over the needle. “Fighting me won’t solve anything. My advice is to relax. 

“I’ll relax when you’re dead and in pieces,” he uttered, his usually rough voice as cold and raw as I’d ever heard it.

“Then, you’re shit out of luck.” I gave him his injection, forcing myself not to just stab the needle into him. “I’m eternal, like you.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hojo.

 

This was a nightmare. I’d wake up soon. I couldn’t be staring at endlessly repeating fluorescent lights, lying on a stretcher. I couldn’t be going back down into a maniac’s lair a second time.

Wouldn’t he ever have the decency to die? He looked the same as he ever did, unwrinkled, his round glasses perched on his oily nose, his lank hair falling in his face.

“Morphine’ll take care of his pain,” he said to someone. “Don’t overdose him. His physiology won’t take it well, and we’ll have an enraged shape-shifter on our hands.” He walked just alongside the stretcher, and reached to turn my head in the opposite direction.

I hated that he touched me gently, hated that even more than the fact I couldn’t fight him. He’d never been rough, not even when he did his disgusting tinkering with my body.

“This isn’t the old lab, Valentine,” he told me. “You’ll enjoy your stay a lot more this time, I promise.” He leaned over me to examine my neck. “That idiot grazed you here, too. This would be easier on both of us if you’d just speak to me.”

“I’ll say your eulogy,” I offered.

“You already have, prematurely,” he replied, unmoved. “Kind of you to wish me peaceful rest, but there’s no peace for the likes of me, or for you, for that matter.” He pried one of my eyelids open and looked at me hard. “You need to stop drinking. I know you can’t get drunk anymore, so why do it at all?”

I didn’t answer.

Sighing, Hojo stepped back so his orderlies could carry me into a room of bright whiteness and cool air. I felt myself placed upon a table.

Panic seized me. I fought the drugs in my system, desperate. No telling what he’d do to me. I wasn’t about to lie still while he cut me open, not this time.

“Valentine, stop it,” he ordered firmly. “Marcus, you and the others vacate; if something goes wrong I don’t want my best people killed. Tell Leanne to stand by. Get the clone and his girlfriend into a warm cell and under observation. And, lock the damned door behind you. I don’t want an assassin’s bullet interrupting my work.”

I felt my bonds giving under my terror. Renewed of hope, I fought even harder, bringing my body off the table. The room tilted and plunged and I suddenly hit a hard tile floor. I stiffened in horror as I felt Hojo himself picking me up. All the fight suddenly just drained out of me, leaving me limp and helpless in his calm grip.

“Better,” he praised, putting me back on the table. He picked up a pair of scissors and began cutting my shirt off. At the first snip, his eyes went to mine. Slowly, he put the scissors down and began un-strapping the shirt instead.

I couldn’t look away from him. I thought if I did, in that instant he’d strike.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmured, removing my gauntlet. “I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t imagine you’d be bothered much even if I did. The way you mope around Midgar, displaying yourself suicidal and homicidal, shows me you don’t care what happens to you.”

He took my restraints off, though I hadn’t noticed him holding a key. They clattered to the floor, echoing sharply. “I’ll leave those off if you’ll calm down,” he promised.

He was insane. If I could get my leaden limbs to work, he’d be dead. I nodded, feigning compliance. I’d rest a few minutes and take my chance against him. I’d find Cloud and Tifa, and we’d get out of this place.

Hojo finished stripping me of my top. His hands went to my pants. I couldn’t help jerking. Giving me another long look, he removed my boots. “I can either cut a hole around the bullet wound, or take the pants off,” he said. “I’d imagine you’d want your clothing intact when you leave.”

When I leave? Cruel bastard. He had no intention of letting me go. I used what little strength I’d gained to start taking the pants off myself. I’d be damned if I let him expose me. His very touch sent chills down my spine.

Hojo backed off. He walked a short distance from me and began washing his long, eerie hands. Despite myself, I couldn’t help watching him. He moved methodically, with practiced grace, washing his forearms as well as his hands.

But, now was my chance. I got off the table silently, and crept toward him, picking up a heavy metallic tray. I could taste victory. Though weak, I had strength enough for splattering his brains all over this pristine white room. One blow and some of my nightmares could end…

I swung.

Moving faster than I’d ever seen him move, Hojo ducked the tray. I grunted in pained surprise as he tackled me and brought me to the floor. A Jenova tentacle shot out from his back, then another and another. In seconds I lay wrapped in them, helpless. They were massively strong.

But gentle. Goddamn him, he was still gentle. I poured all my hate for him into my eyes, staring up with every hope my rage would just ignite his greasy body.

Undisturbed, he only held me down. “You wouldn’t get out of here even if you managed to kill me.” He got off of me, using his beastly arms to put me on his table once again. “Now, I’m going to dig bullets out of you. Even you can get systemic poisoning from lead.” He brought thick leather restraints from under the table and began clamping me down. “These will hold you after I get the morphine in you.” He checked the clock on the wall, his black eyes narrowing. “I have thirty seconds to dose you, I estimate. You build energy quickly.”

Abandoned to his plans, I didn’t fight him or the needle. His earlier words about how I moped around the city came back to haunt. Most of the time I truly didn’t care what happened to me. Now that I’d burned up my resistance, that old depression came creeping back.

Why fight him? He’d have his way. Hojo always had his way.


	3. Chapter 3

Valentine’s sudden capitulation worried me. I washed up again, snapped on a pair of gloves and slid a stool over to his table with my foot. Those pretty red eyes watched me dully, disinterested. He needed a psychiatrist. Too bad Shin-Ra didn’t offer psychiatric health care.

I dug the first bullet out easily, but the second proved a chore. His flesh had already closed over, making the sterilizer I’d poured all over him effectively useless there. I had to cut him to get inside. As I worked, I occasionally made eye contact to check his status. No good. He’d checked out. I doubted he could even speak now.

The way he’d looked up at me when I prepared to cut his shirt off, still stung. He’d fully expected the worst from me. He thought I’d hurt him the moment he looked away. Of course we had no love lost between us, but I’d never harmed him unprovoked. And, he’d practically begged me to eliminate him so many years ago. You don’t fuck another man’s wife and expect him to ignore it, do you?

But Lucrecia would never come back to either of us. I had no motive to just torture Vincent Valentine, no reason to cut him up and use him for play. I had plenty of people for that. Even he had to realize I only had so much energy for a bit of fun.

I lowered his pants far enough to work, seeing the reason for his earlier nervousness. He went commando, and the combination of drugs in his system caused a half-mast. I draped a sheet over him and began removing the last bullet. At least I knew now Lucrecia hadn’t been trading up. I’d wondered about that off and on for years.

He had an excellent body. I remembered him being thinner, more wiry and less muscular. He probably had women falling all over him, if they could get past his hygiene. He never changed out of these clothes, obviously, even if or when he did bathe. I recognized his lack of attention to sanitation as a symptom of depression. I had it myself. It’s terribly depressing to be me.

I had to sew this wound; it seemed resistant to his accelerated healing. Once finished, I changed gloves and brought a pan of warm water over. Carefully, I removed his dirty headband and threw it in the sink. He blinked at me, barely comprehending.

Slowly, gently, I washed his face and cleaned the blood from him. He stirred a little as I washed his chest with more fresh water. I tried not to ogle him, but it proved nearly impossible not to appreciate the firm, smooth body under my hands. He gleamed like polished alabaster. I removed his pants completely, letting him keep the sheet, and wiped him of the blood on his leg. I then gathered up all his clothing. I’d have these dry cleaned before allowing him to put them on again, fearing he’d keep dirt against himself and cause an infection.

“Hojo,” he groaned. I turned back to him, seeing him trying to wet his lips with his tongue. He had a very attractive mouth. Factually, he was a quite gorgeous man altogether.

He looked thirsty. I ran cold water into a clean beaker, stuck a specimen pipette down in it for a straw, and made the offer. To my surprise he drank all of the water. I got him more and he drank it, too.

When he turned his head I knew he’d finished. I went into the supply annex, got a gown and stood over him with it. “Your clothing must be cleaned before I give it back,” I informed. “In the meantime, you can wear one of these.”

Life returned to his eyes. He curled his lip at the flimsy cover. I thought perhaps I could find something else that didn’t upset him, so I went back into the supply room. After a ten minute search I discovered a cache of drawstring scrubs. Selecting the longest pair, I came back. “Are these more acceptable?”

Valentine looked at the black cotton pants. He nodded, but seemed reluctant. I released his arm restraints and put the scrub bottoms on his chest. “I’m finished. Go ahead and put those on and I’ll take you to your friends.” I walked away and gave him my back, but I watched him in the reflection of a stainless steel tray set up on a drying rack. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, not with his apparent need to smash my skull.

“Do you need the bathroom before we go?” I asked.

“No.”

His dark, husky rasp sent a shiver down my spine. I fully understood why my late ex-wife had wanted to hear that voice in a bed. I bundled his clothing and tied it all up in the vetoed gown, turning back to him. “Wheelchair, stretcher, or your own legs?”

Valentine attempted to get to his feet. He staggered and immediately sat down again, frustration and fury settling onto his fine features. “I can’t walk,” he admitted, and I knew the confession deeply hurt his pride.

I gave him his gauntlet, which caused a momentary distraction from his wounded independence. “The drugs will wear off in several hours. Your strength should return then, don’t worry.”

“Why am I here?” he demanded, his tone impatient and worried.

“You and your friends are going to help me cure X2Geostigma.” I unfolded a wheelchair and brought it to him. He fought my putting him in it, jerking his arm out of my grip so fast it unbalanced us both. I almost fell on him, and he nearly pitched backward off the operating table. I lost patience. “Get in the wheelchair yourself, then,” I ordered, “but, get in it. You need to rest. By the look of you, you haven’t slept in a long time.”

“Your filthy cocktail of drugs is what makes me…” Valentine’s eyes rolled back into his head. He fell forward, not unconscious but close.

I put him in the wheelchair, dropped his clothing bundle in his lap, and put my lab coat back on. “Easy to handle,” I finished for him, perhaps not using the words he would like. “I’m not inclined to deal with you at full power and awareness. You’d tear my head off and spit down my neck.”

So saying, I began wheeling him toward the door. On the way, I grabbed a clean sheet and draped it over him entirely. “This will spare your dignity. No one will know who you are except the people who brought you here, and they don’t talk to the rest of the zoloms in this company. So, loosen up and enjoy the chauffeured trip, Turk.”


	4. Chapter 4

Shamefully, I almost fell asleep while he guided me. The awesome quiet and having a barrier between me and the light made it impossible to stay fully awake. I felt like a weak fool and resented him all the more, especially upon realizing he had me in his arms again. I felt something cushioning meet my aching body.

“What have you done to Vincent?” Cloud’s voice demanded, but he sounded slurred.

“Picked slugs out of him,” Hojo answered briskly, again covering me with the sheet. “Are you thirsty, Strife?”

“Yes,” Cloud answered after a long moment.

I heard Hojo filling a container close by. Then, I heard Cloud loudly drinking. Hojo made a thoughtful, humming sound. “Miss Lockhart, are you awake yet?” he asked.

“M’awake, you bastard,” Tifa muttered.

“Are you thirsty, too?” he asked.

“No. Get the hell away from me.”

“Interesting. Perhaps J-cells cause opiate based tranquillizers to more rapidly dehydrate the body.” Hojo’s voice grew louder as he approached me again. I felt a heavy cloth draping over me. “I’ll set a pair of orderlies to attend you three,” he announced. “If you can, convince this stubborn Turk to rest. At the very least, remind him he’s no good to kill me if he can’t keep from nodding off.”

God, I hated him.

“Rest well, all of you.” 

I heard a metallic clang, then silence. After a moment, Cloud sat down on my bed. “What’s he want with us this time?” he asked softly.

“He claims he’s going to use us to cure Geostigma,” I answered with effort. I still couldn’t open my eyes. “What does this place look like?”

“Nothing like the cells I’ve ever occupied,” Cloud admitted. “Looks like an apartment. There are three separate bedrooms, a main room, and a bathroom. We’ve got a television, a weird sort of kitchenette, and a couple of couches.” I heard him scratching his head, which he tended to do while thinking. “The door is electronically locked, with a keypad and a handprint panel. No windows, but plenty of mirrors.”

“Shut the lights off,” I said. “See if the mirrors are illuminated from behind.”

Cloud got up. Darkness descended. “Yeah,” he said slowly, anger in his tone. “I can see a room behind the main, largest mirror. Hojo’s in there, sitting at a computer but facing away from us. He probably hasn’t seen us checking.”

“It’s safe to assume he’s listening, though,” I replied.

Cloud paused, then chuckled without humor. “He just waved. Yeah, he’s listening.”

I heard a loud bang. “Shut the bugs off, Hojo!” Tifa shouted.

“Tifa, he’s not going to care,” Cloud sighed. “We can pitch all the fits we want, but he’s going to do exactly what he intends to do. Don’t break the mirror; that’ll just mean he’ll have to move us someplace else.”

I summoned my strength and sat up, plucking at the bandage on my chest. It came off easily. Woozy, I scanned the room and found the two-way mirror. Hojo indeed typed away behind that glass, his back to us and a cigarette dangling from his averted face. I stared at that sleek, blue-black head and felt the urge to throw a couch through the mirror.

He got up and approached the barrier. His finger came down, punched something I couldn’t see, and I heard a click. Utter, flat silence. He punched another button and the glass darkened.

“It appears we have privacy now,” Cloud remarked. “Decent of him. Still, the whole situation stinks. It’s rotten. I don’t trust him for a second.”

I collapsed back down. “Hojo’s motivated. Whatever his true reason for bringing us here, he’ll reveal it in due time. Like any crazed megalomaniac, he can’t help bragging about what he’s doing.”

Cloud growled. “I can understand him grabbing me if he wants a cure for Geostigma; I whipped it with Aerith’s help. Maybe he needs my antibodies or something. But, why try to take the rest of us?”

“Because none of us have the disease,” Tifa said. “We’ve all been exposed countless times, but none of us have it.”

“So why not use himself?” Cloud countered. “He obviously doesn’t have Geostigma.”

“Because he’s not a pure control,” Tifa explained, summing it up. “He’s jerked his molecules from one side of the genetic spectrum to the other. He can’t use himself.” 

We fell quiet awhile, thinking. Tifa broke that silence a good ten minutes later. “Who got our weapons?”

“That Foley guy,” Cloud answered. “But, he’s dead. I guess my sword and Vincent’s gun are now in some sort of storage, or destroyed.”

Hojo had blown Foley’s head off for the crime of shooting me. He’d wanted us brought to him unharmed. He’d even instructed to let us go if it looked like we could escape, because of that. He could re-capture us, but he couldn’t replace us…

No, that wasn’t right. He could clone Cloud. Cloud was a clone. Perhaps he couldn’t copy a clone.

I heard the door opening. Again I sat up. A man and a woman dressed in white scrubs entered, their arms full of folded cloth and specimen collecting kits. “I’m Renee and this is Robert,” the tall and muscular woman announced. “The professor assigned us to take care of you.”

“Get lost,” Cloud grumbled, sitting.

“Can’t,” she said cheerfully. “We have to give you some clothes and toiletries, then get urine samples.”

Cloud’s face turned red. “I’m not pissing in a jar,” he declared.

“It isn’t like you’re parting with something precious,” Renee argued, dumping most of her burdens. “The professor has to know when all the drugs are out of your systems.” She cracked her knuckles quite audibly. “Listen, Robert and I might not look like much to a bunch of heroes, but we’re pretty tough. If we have to hold you down and push on your bladders for the urine, we will.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Cloud said, staggering upright. “Give me the stupid specimen bottle, and stop talking like you know us.”

Renee handed him the plastic container. She dropped one on my couch, then politely offered one to Tifa. “But, we do know you,” she argued. “Vaunted heroes against Shin-Ra, but also feared terrorists.”

This made Cloud splutter. I privately agreed with the impressive-looking woman. We in AVALANCHE were indeed terrorists. Cloud never admitted to it, but we employed dangerous and destructive methods to buckle Shin-Ra’s stranglehold on the planet.

I took the bottle and got to my feet, looking for the bathroom. I still couldn’t walk, damn it. One step told me the truth of that. I fell. The big woman caught me, however. “Easy, cutie,” she said. “I’ll take you. Hang on to my arm.”

Against my instincts and my pride, I allowed her to aid me to the bathroom. The sooner I got this over with, the better. I did need to rest, and I couldn’t do that with constant chattering and arguing.

Renee left me sitting on the edge of a bathtub. I fumbled with the unfamiliar pants, freed myself and filled the specimen bottle. Capping it, I looked at myself in the mirror. This one didn’t conceal another room, thankfully.

I looked terrible. Washed out. Blackness under my eyes. Scruffy. Making a decision, I gave the bottle to the woman waiting on the other side of the door. “I’m going to shower,” I announced.

She nodded. “Do you want Robert’s help?”

“No.” I slammed the door on her. With maximum effort, I got the water to an acceptable temperature, dragged my pants off and crawled into the tub. There I just sat, shivering, letting the spray pelt me full blast. 

My brain threw an image against my retinas. Hojo, patiently and cautiously cleaning me of blood. If not for his professional care, I’d have felt violated. But, his eyes hadn’t revealed anything that suggested lechery, nothing but the practiced, impersonal touch of any medical practitioner. He’d even covered me. If I could spare blood to blush, that memory would inflict heat.

Lucrecia had called him a practicing pervert, doing so in jest but also in truth. She liked to wonder aloud why her husband preferred a man over a woman. I’d laughed, said it worked out for us, and left the topic.

I could see Hojo as one of those men who liked men. He had a strange, fey quality, a bit delicate in appearance. My secondary supervisor in the Turks had that same aura, but he’d proven tough as a bagnadrana shell. Hojo was tougher than that, even. He’d taken massive damage by us at the Sister Ray, and obviously lived.

If he really wanted us to help him find a cure for Geostigma, why go to such lengths to secure us? My friends weren’t exactly open to Hojo, but they were good people that gave out second, third, fourth chances like children pass a sack of candy. He could have convinced them, eventually.

“Vincent?” Tifa’s voice carried through the door. “You okay in there?”

“Yes,” I croaked. I shut the water off and crawled out. No towels. Fine. I managed to get the pants on again. Holding on to all walls and door frames I encountered, I eventually made it back in to the main room. My strength did seem to be returning. The crackpot hadn’t lied about that, at least.


	5. Chapter 5

Now, I felt really worried.

I watched Valentine’s digital image, marking off fifteen minutes since he’d laboriously entered the tub. He didn’t move, just sat there with his arms wrapped around his bent knees, barely blinking though the water ran into his eyes. He shivered and trembled like an overwrought racing chocobo. Hair plastered to his head and back, he looked about to drown.

The clone’s girlfriend interrupted Valentine’s state of near catatonia by calling through the door. He snapped out of his thoughts and slowly managed to climb out, shutting the sprayer off on his way. His painful dignity cut me. A man shouldn’t look so noble struggling into hospital scrubs while wet.

He flicked the water from his gauntlet and staggered out. I hit Cam Five’s button to watch him drag himself back to the living room area. He dropped onto a couch and went still.

I shut off the video feeds, sat back and lit a cigarette. Valentine needed something, but what? He had friends who cared about him. They weren’t enough, obviously. He had talent and beauty, too, but did those things help his state of mind? Seemingly, no. 

Why did I care? I just intended to use him for blood samples and the like. His state of mind didn’t concern me. It had to be the basic respect of predator to predator. Valentine had my admiration for many aspects of his personality, really. He displayed a cool, calculating intellect, determination, drive and dedication. He could and did kill. He was a hunter, but had many more dimensions.

And, he was quite captivating. I truly did understand Lucrecia’s interest.

I looked at the clock while stubbing out my smoke. Six-thirty in the morning. I had to be at work soon. Laughing to myself, I stretched out on my own couch. Robert would wake me before Renee took her turn watching my office. An hour of sleep would surely perk me right up.

 

Sleep didn’t perk me up. It made me cranky and depressed and quite obnoxious. I snapped at everyone I encountered, once I managed to drag myself from my office. At the break room coffee maker I sloshed creamer everywhere and simply lost my grip. Barely aware of what I did, I threw the Mr. Java to the floor and smashed it to bits with my boot heel. Broken glass went everywhere. It refreshed my soul to hear it grind to gritty powder between hard rubber and ceramic tile. Dimly aware of people scattering, I left and stomped down the stairs toward Medical Lab Research Nine.

I never made it. While on route, several scrub techs surrounded me. Their chattering made no sense, just filled my already bewildered head with gibberish. 

“Shut up, all of you,” I shouted at top voice, bringing blessed, instantaneous silence. “You,” I said, pointing to a familiar tech. “What’s going on?”

“Accident on the field, sir,” he said. “Several SOLDIERs are on their way here for patch jobs, two are critical, four are nearly gone.”

“Get the O.R. ready, call Leanne, call Alvey, Burton and Ellen,” I instructed, turning in the proper direction. “Get them here in ten minutes or less. Who’s doing the triage?”

“John Rhodes and Simon Stewart are already there and waiting,” someone said. No one began chattering.

In minutes I had a nurse prepping me. I didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t seem odd. I had hundreds of staff members and I couldn’t be bothered to remember them all. Still, he pissed me off almost immediately when he violated procedure and tried to dry my arms and hands in the opposite direction. Snarling, I shoved him away with my hip and washed all over again. “You don’t wipe above an unwashed area and drag the germs down,” I lectured.

“Sorry, professor,” the man said, and he didn’t sound sorry at all.

I finished, thrust my hands under an air dryer and concentrated on my temper. In the reflection of the dryer nozzle, I saw the nurse picking up a scalpel. Not just a violation of operating protocol, but germ management. Incensed anew, I watched him get a good grip on it, turn and come toward me.

Ah. No wonder he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. His nursing credentials ended and began with a forged piece of plastic at best.

When would people ever learn they cast reflections and shadows? As long as I could face something shiny, no one would sneak up on me. 

I grabbed the portable autoclave at my elbow, hit the lid release latch, and swung. Superheated, pressurized steam and medical instruments covered my treacherous, so-called nurse. He didn’t avoid a bit of my impromptu barrage, and fell screaming in mortal agony both scalded and skewered. Irritated, I washed my hands a third time while he writhed and shrieked. 

Scarlet and Heideggar knew better than this. I’d survived more assassination attempts than anyone in living history, I felt sure, and some piss-ant little amateur had about as much chance of killing me as a paper cut.

“Stop making that horrible noise,” I told the hired killer as Leanne entered. She said nothing but put my gloves on for me. As soon as she finished, she began her own prep, eyes downcast. I realized she had no way of knowing this wasn’t a real nurse I’d effectively maimed. 

Soon I was in the O.R. and working. At least things made a little more sense here. Someone turned on a stereo and filled the room with a violin concerto. Soothed, I patched up men and supervised my staff’s attempts at the same. We worked more than two hours. Finished, our patients in the holding ward Post-Op , we went to clean up.

The fake nurse lay close to the opposite door, straining to reach the highly positioned door latch. He’d left a puddle and a wide, bloody smear in the effort of dragging himself. “Why didn’t someone come and get this idiot?” I asked no one in particular, kicking him from the door. Looking at him, I smiled. “Which one hired you, I wonder? Scarlet? Heideggar?”

He said nothing. I didn’t expect he would. Either of the two that could have hired him would have made sure he wouldn’t tell me anything. He probably had one of my patented digger bombs in a vital area. The minute he said something incriminating, he’d explode. I really regretted the theft of those bombs. By my count I had two still floating around at an enemy’s discretion.

The poor creature needed put out of his misery. I’d taken the skin off his face and neck, and he still had scissors, scalpels and probes imbedded in raw, blistering areas. Well, he’d suffered enough for his stupidity. I reached down and broke his neck.

“Nearly breakfast, doctor,” Leanne said as we washed our hands. “I don’t suppose you’ll go to the cafeteria.”

“No, being poisoned once was enough.” Poison couldn’t kill me, either, but it hadn’t put me in a good mood to roll in agony while I purged.

Leanne nodded. “I brought enough for two if you trust me.”

Touched, I made eye contact with her. “You might upset your husband.”

She shook her head to the negative. “Arthur isn’t a jealous man.”

“All right, Leanne,” I said, finally free of operating gear. “My office?”

She nodded again. In less than twenty minutes we were eating in peaceful silence. She’d made a clear display of dividing our portions from one dish, showing me she’d be eating poison if I did. 

Leanne never just chatted. Quiet, patient, she didn’t stress a man with unnecessary social interaction. Any time she shared my space, she tended to her own business. I liked her. She never complained and she continued her aggressive course of schooling despite her already high credentials.

Feeling generous, I asked her what paperwork occupied her attention. She gave me a small smile. “Psychology. I’m thinking of switching fields a few years down the road.”

“I’ll hate to lose you.” I gave her a bottle of water from my dorm size refrigerator. “Do you have any mentors you think of highly?”

“Two, but only one of which I would recommend,” she answered. She searched her pockets, brought out her wallet and found a card. “Doctor Charles Hawthorn.” Giving me the card, she opened her water. “He specializes in Soldier’s Heart.”

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?” I asked for clarification.

“Yes. He’s an independent psychiatrist and psychologist from Wutai. I can imagine he had no end of specialty cases there.” Leanne finished her breakfast and kicked back with a cigarette, knowing I wouldn’t care if she smoked in here. “He’s very good. I’m learning more by talking to him on the phone at night than I am by taking courses.”

“I always learned better that way myself,” I admitted, sliding the card into my pocket. “I hope you go far, Leanne. You can do better than Shin-Ra.”

She gave me a sweet, lopsided grin. “Thank you, doctor. I hope you get out of here, too.”


	6. Chapter 6

didn’t think I could take any more of Tifa and Cloud. Being a normal couple despite their extraordinary abilities, they had spats and cuddling sessions with alarming regularity. After two solid days of sharing their space or brooding in my bedroom, I felt ready to explode.

It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know of my hypersensitivity. They didn’t know I avoided contact with others to protect myself. Still, at the morning of day three, I plotted how to get away from them. 

Hojo hadn’t yet returned, which angered me. He owed it to me to come here and get whatever abuse I could heap upon his greasy head. Fully recovered, I intended to attack him the second he came through the door. Tentacles or not, Jenova cells or not, I could utterly destroy him. In my current mood, I could take on an army and come out victorious.

I could hear Cloud and Tifa talking, but not well. Whatever lined the walls in these rooms had just enough padding to prevent picking up conversational nuances, but not enough to completely stop noise. 

I’d never had the ability to filter racket from my ears, which had caused me much trouble in the Turk program. Now, with the heightened senses granted by Hojo, Jenova and Lucrecia, any sort of low-level aggravation sent me into frenzy. I more easily ignored active noise, noise I participated in and caused.

My blood teeth ached. Despite Hojo’s claims, I did feel an attraction to drinking blood. I’d never truly felt the _**need**_ to drink it, however. But, the smell of it made me anxious and eager to taste. I didn’t know why my canines itched right now, but I couldn’t disregard the sensation. Possibly, Hojo had dosed me with something to cause it, put one of his ghastly, mysterious and experimental drugs in with the tranquillizers.

A knock came at my bedroom door. “Enter,” I said, noticing the conversation outside had stopped. To my instantaneous alarm, Hojo himself strolled in. He had a tranq gun and a toothy smile pointed right at me. “Chaffing at the bit?” he asked. “I suggest you stay flat on your back unless you want a good measure of barbiturates floating in your bloodstream.” 

“You think you can hit me with it fast enough?” I asked, starting to move. “You think it’ll take effect before I tear your throat out?”

“Yes.” Hojo primed the chamber. “It’s measured specifically for you, stubborn Turk.” His smile never faltered. “There’s no need for such aggression. Your friends have already donated blood without too much fuss.”

I swung my legs off the bed. “If you put drugs in my body, you won’t get a sample at all,” I pointed out, standing.

“That’s true. I can always come back, though.” He stopped smiling, his mood shifting into serious intent. “Don’t you want to help conquer a deadly disease, Valentine?”

“If I could believe your claim, if I could trust that’s why we’re here, I’d help,” I admitted. “But, I don’t trust you.” 

Hojo seemed to think about what I said. He let his eyes drift thoughtfully, those dark orbs looking at nothing and everything at once. “I could take you to the research lab,” he offered. “You could look at my notes and see for yourself what I’m doing.”

I heard his proposal for what it was; truth. Still, truth didn’t mean a complete revelation of his plans. If I had the nerve to crawl inside his crazy head, I might just do it. I wanted out of here. If I agreed to go with him, my chances of escape increased.

“All right,” I said. “You try to pull something and I’ll kill you.”

“You have to get in line for that, Valentine,” he answered dryly. Absently, he rubbed at a bruise on his cheek. I looked closely, seeing knuckle marks.

“Wine and roses over for Shin-Ra?” I asked, smirking.

“Rufus is gone,” he said, surprising me. “It’s quite chaotic without him. Scarlet and Heideggar run the company now.”

Interesting. Neither of those two held any love for Hojo. “No one knows where Rufus is?”

“No. He just vanished.” Hojo lowered his gun. “The Turks are very upset over this, of course. Heideggar had granted the complete transfer of all Turk responsibility to Tseng, but now he controls them again. He has them assigned to the most useless tasks, busy work and that kind of thing.”

“And the science department?” I prompted.

“Still funded, but only because an agent of New Midgar Alliance, Samuel Quinn, desires the same cure I’m looking for,” Hojo answered. “He’ll cause me a great deal of grief when he discovers I have the three of you here, being the head of an ethics committee.”

Even more interesting. I decided to put aside my plans to just break Hojo’s skinny neck until I knew more. The WRO would find any information about the NMA very useful. Reeve had nothing about the organization yet, and he very much wanted to know their operating policies.

“Scarlet and Heideggar are trying to kill you, aren’t they?” I asked.

“They try,” he admitted. “I average two attempts a day.”

I looked at the mark on him again. I now noticed a burn on his left hand, a scrape on his right jaw, and a small split at the corner of his mouth. “One this morning?”

“There were two of them this time.” Hojo chuckled. “I imagine they’ll keep upping the numbers until I fall.”

“You don’t seem very worried,” I observed.

He smiled. “All of AVALANCHE couldn’t kill me. Jenova couldn’t kill me. Why should I be afraid of hired guns? I’m in my own territory, surrounded by canon fodder, well armed and mostly sleepless.”

He had good points. I hadn’t known Jenova had taken a crack at him. “Do I get my clothing back?”

“Oh.” Hojo tugged at a black strap over his shoulder. “Here. They’re clean.” He tossed a duffel bag onto the bed. “Someone stole your boots I’m afraid. I replaced them, but they aren’t the same.”

Why would anyone steal those things? I grabbed the bag and dumped its contents. With my clothes and headband, Hojo had given me a pair of heavy combat boots.

“I’ll wait.” Hojo backed out, shutting the door behind him.

I changed, feeling much better now that I wore familiar clothing. The leather wrapped me in security, buffering me against external sensation. My new boots fit well. It seemed strange to wear them, as they were obviously Turk issue. I did miss my cloak. I’d lost it when attacking Foley. 

When I emerged, Hojo was sitting on a couch. Tifa and Cloud, staring and glaring by turns, turned to give me pointed looks of concern. I motioned to Hojo. “I’m going with him to the research lab,” I informed. “He’s promised to show me his work on curing Geostigma.”

“I’ll bring him back in…” Hojo looked at his watch, a large, old-fashioned analogue piece with a cover so scratched I could see the marks from ten feet away. “An hour and a half,” he finished. “Surely that’s long enough to satisfy the curiosity and judgment of a stubborn Turk.”

Asshole.

To make him nervous, I walked behind him. Intimidation only seemed to work to a slight degree. While aware of me, he didn’t bank left or right to view me askance. Appearing quite comfortable with me lurking very close behind him, he began whistling.

Memories struck me in a barrage of music. Hojo had always whistled. I recalled how often I’d reported to the labs and heard him the moment I stepped off the elevator. He could whistle complicated tunes, and with pure notes, sometimes the melody so perfect it seemed manufactured by a machine and not a pair of lips.

It would be so easy to snap his neck right now. 

“Stairs,” he announced. “After I narrowly escaped a cut cable on the elevator, it appears a good practice to exercise my legs.” He opened the stairwell door and entered, descending at a good clip and resuming his infernal whistling.

He seemed in good shape for someone his age, moving along easily and with speed. I wondered if he’d used the same anti-aging technology on himself as well as on me.

“Afternoon, Professor Hojo,” an attractive blonde woman greeted as we passed her on the staircase.

“Leanne,” he said pleasantly, nodding to her. He then snagged her lab coat and brought her to a halt. “Leanne, this is Vincent Valentine. Vincent, this is Leanne.”

Surprised at an introduction, I inclined my head to her. “Miss,” I said.

She smiled warmly. “Mrs.,” she corrected, holding up her left hand to show off a tremendous diamond. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Valentine.”

We continued on. I grabbed Hojo’s hard, wiry shoulder, though I hated touching him, and yanked him to a standstill. “You call me whatever the fuck you like, but don’t use my first name,” I said hatefully. “Why the hell bother to introduce me to your Shin-Ra compatriot, anyway?”

Hojo’s black eyes revealed nothing but honest confusion. “Why not? She’s a nice woman, and we were passing her anyway.”

Now I felt confused. “I’m not a friend or a co-worker, Hojo. I’m a prisoner. Do you even have a concept of what that is?” The sick, deranged bastard. He had real issues if he thought I’d respond to a gracious routine at this stage in our relationship.

“Of course I know what that is, Vincent,” he answered, using my name again and making my teeth grind together. “I’ve been a prisoner of Shin-Ra since nineteen-fifty-six.” He turned and began walking down again. “Granted, it isn’t exactly the same thing, but how am I to entertain myself or to get anything accomplished without Shin-Ra gil?”

“Stop using my name, damn it,” I growled. “And, you could walk away from this place. How long do you intend to go on with your tinkering, your genetic experiments and basic, unwelcome meddling? You’re about a hundred years old. Shouldn’t you have retired by now?”

“Scarlet and Heideggar certainly seem to think I ought to retire,” he chuckled. “Honestly, if I could fund a decent lab, I’d retire today. Maybe.” He stopped at a door labeled SL-19 and pulled his identification card from his coat, swiping it down the scanner slot. 

“Lucrecia said you were dedicated and driven, not a work fiend,” I answered, following him through the opening door.

“She had a tendency to lie.” Hojo led me down a long, utterly barren hallway. “She lied about you, she lied about me, about herself, about anything that struck her fancy. I always enjoyed that about her.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” I demanded, reaching out to grab him.

Three shocking seconds later I was looking up at him from flat on my back with him atop me. Something cold and sharp dug into my throat, right at the artery, and he brought his face within inches of mine. His black eyes burned with wrath, and his body trembled. “I’ll talk about her the way I fucking please, fucking Turk!” he swore. “You knew her for six months. I, however, married her and had her for three goddamn years!”

The sharp coldness pressed a little deeper, producing a slight stinging sensation. Hojo’s eyes dared me to speak. I thought about flipping him over and just killing him. It would feel so good.

“You dare,” he said, not calming in the slightest. “You need to let her go, Turk, even worse than I do. You won’t be putting your dick in her anymore. She’s fucking dead!”

The need to know what he was up to, the need to learn about the NMA, all of that came to my mind. But, anger swelled within me so fast I left rational concern behind. I heaved upward and threw him.

Hojo hit the wall, but he landed on his feet. He dusted himself off with irritated, quick movements. “So _**glad**_ we could come to an understanding,” he said coldly, snapping his coat into smooth lines. Before I could get up, he had a hand in a pocket. “Don’t make me tranquillize you. Do you want to see my research or not?”

I felt torn between giving in to my homicidal impulses and the need to play this right. So torn, in fact, that I could only stare at him blankly for a very long two minutes. Two minutes. I knew because his watch made a strange sound every time it marked a full minute, a scratching sort of drag betraying the age of his timepiece.

He lit a cigarette. He never took his eyes off me. Each carefully controlled movement carried the same predatory effect of a swamp zolom’s choosing dance. He knew what I was thinking and he waited patiently for me to prompt his next move.

He always did this to me. I hated how he could make me fear him. Years ago, even before I’d started falling for Lucrecia, he’d inspired a wary sort of anxiety deep in my heart. I’d bluffed through most of it, sometimes feeling I’d fooled him and sometimes not, but always mindful. Being afraid didn’t make a Turk look good, and I had fright stacked upon dread of this man.

“You don’t know what to do, do you?” he asked quietly.

I began to deny it, then realized I’d already admitted as much with my frozen silence. Remaining mute didn’t get anything accomplished, either. So, I told him the absolute unvarnished truth. “I despise you and I want to kill you badly.”

He blinked. “You need to work on the present or the future instead of the past.” Slowly, he blew a perfect smoke ring. “The past is doing nothing _**for**_ you, Valentine, and _**everything**_ against you.”

“I’ve heard that before.” I found myself able to move again, but still didn’t attempt it. “It sounded no better coming from you than it did from my friends.”

“I should hope you consider everything I say to you with care,” he replied in a soft, measured tone. “I’m not here to preserve your tragic past, to diminish or promote your frame of mind. I am, however, completely honest with you and I have always been.”

“An honest opinion is still an opinion,” I argued.

“A good opinion is favorable to the outcome of any dilemma.” Hojo smiled. “What’s keeping you here, Valentine? I’m quite mad, but I fully understand your capabilities. I had a hand in your making.”

“As if I can forget!” I raised my voice for the first time in years, and it seemed so loud. It bounced around the long dimensions of the barren corridor and came back to me distorted and harsh. “Do you honestly think I can just forget, Hojo? That I can turn my back on what you did to me?”

“Why not? I turned my back on what you did to me.” He threw his cigarette onto the floor, smashed it under his boot heel with practiced efficiency. “Aside from your actions, I never knew you well enough for hatred. You don’t know me any better than I know you, yet you cling to some idea that I’m evil incarnate.” He started walking toward me. “I assure you, I’m not. No, I’m not a good person, but neither are you.”

Once he came to stand within my reach, Hojo stopped. “After you kill me, what then? You’ll have no focus for your hatred. Do you think you can let go of something that seems to nourish you so much?” He smiled again. “You cultivate your darkness by hating me.”

Shiva, he was such a _**villain**_. A natural villain. Since I’d never been a natural hero, I resented him for his freedom. I had to work through every problem with care while he blissfully and joyfully did just as he pleased and fuck-all to the opinion of others. 

Additional to his villainy, he remained the most perceptive person I’d ever known. I _**would**_ have a hole inside me if I killed him. I’d have no adversary. Since he was all I had left connecting me to Lucrecia, killing him meant severing my last, pathetic link to her.

I closed my eyes, sick of the duality in my life, my mind, my very soul. Long ago I’d wanted to stand for something. I’d never intended to be such a fence-straddler. 

“You can hate me if you want, I don’t mind,” Hojo said, his tone so reasonable and quiet I knew he meant every word. “Just don’t expect me to hate you back. I got my pound of flesh and I don’t require more.”

I opened my eyes. “Show me your damned research,” I said.


	7. Chapter 7

Valentine did very well for someone suffering hypervigilance. I’d made him like this, to a great degree. After consulting with Leanne’s mentor, Charles Hawthorn, I’d concluded the Turk had Soldier’s Heart. I had a few treatment methods lined up in my head, but no definite course of action yet. There wasn’t any reason I couldn’t try to fix some of the damage I’d done. I could at least address my part of his illness.

He’d come very close to slaughtering me in the hallway. It had thrilled me to watch him fight himself. He had superb control despite the handicap of super-sensitivity. His beautiful eyes filled with fire, tinged yellow, their pupils dilated. Otherwise, he hadn’t moved. He’d barely appeared to breathe. 

I’d like to see him focus on more pleasant matters. I felt sure he’d be just as lovely while enjoying himself as he was while stretched thin. Nothing stimulated me as much as watching an animal do what came naturally, and Valentine was pure animal. He had beastly cunning and survival in abundance.

He stood in the center of my research lab, his red gaze never resting long anywhere. Methodical, he marked the positions of doors, of places someone could conceal themselves. He seemed to measure distances, and I could bet he estimated how much time he’d take in getting from one point to another.

I shivered. Angry, passionate, pale and perfect, Vincent Valentine could inspire anyone to infidelity. My poor wife never had a chance.

To business. I couldn’t stand here and make calf-eyes over the Turk. Yes, I felt lonely, but he certainly wasn’t open to my sexual advances. In fact, if I did the selfish thing, seduced him, I’d make his mental problems even worse.

I still didn’t know why I cared about his state of mind.

Taking my paper copies of the X2Geostigma files, I dropped them on a clean table. “If you would, while you look you could check my sums for me,” I joked.

Valentine swung his attention back to me with alarming speed. I watched him register the slight insult, then put it away as unimportant. He sat without a word and began reading, managing to be both stiff-backed and deliberately relaxed. He made a careful show of not caring where I stood or what I might end up doing.

Beautiful.

I began working on the Clone’s blood samples, leaving my reluctant guest quite alone. 

Time passed. A slight movement in my peripheral vision made me turn. Valentine had a paper up to his eyes. He groped for a pencil from the holder to his left. Slowly, he put the paper on the table and studied it. Then, he carefully began to erase.

Curious, I walked to him and hung over his shoulder. He tensed, but didn’t stop rubbing out an equation. With precise and somewhat cocky movements, he corrected my work.

I snatched the paper and held it up for examination. An apt and proper rectification of my algebra. I looked down at Valentine, who sat in smug silence.

I chuckled. How _**funny**_. He’d gotten one over on me and I’d asked for it. Good for him. I went back to my own work and left him again. Some time later, my watch chimed softly, reminding me. I’d set it to tell me when I needed to get Valentine back to his friends.

“I’m not finished,” he growled, though I hadn’t moved or told him the significance of the alarm.

“By all means, read as long as you wish,” I answered mildly. “Especially since you caught a mistake three different people missed.” I noticed some of the papers he’d already finished had little punctures from his claws. Briefly, I entertained a fantasy about him raking that gauntlet down my back. A little tremor tore through me.

Valentine lifted his head and audibly sniffed the air. A look of mild confusion rested on his fine features before settling into careful blankness. “You’re a pervert,” he grumbled. “What could be sexually stimulating about the contents of a microscope slide?”

“Nothing I’ve encountered so far,” I answered, realizing he could smell it when I felt stimulated. Carefully, I did not let that knowledge cause a fresh wave of pheromones. No sense in antagonizing an already hyper-aware, over-sensitized dragon.

Yes, a dragon. That’s what he was. A fire-breathing, shrewd and well armored, bloodthirsty dragon. I’d be lucky to make it through my quest without him devouring me. But, I liked a challenge. 

 

I found it interesting that a crazy man could hold his mind long enough to put research together like this. I didn’t know most of the medical terminology, just the math and basic chemistry, but I had no doubt he’d gone as far as he could without those blood samples he wanted so badly.

It had pleased me to correct his math. Strangely, it had pleased him, too. He made no sense to me.

I didn’t have to question his sincerity now, though. At least in his attempt to cure Geostigma, he seemed on the level. By the look of this work, he’d spent months getting to this point.

A wave of musk washed over me. Unbelieving, I turned my head to catch the scent and its source. Yes, it came from him. Yet, he remained busy with his microscope and didn’t seem the slightest bit divided in attention. I told him he was a pervert and he didn’t challenge my opinion. 

“I have to take these ruined slides to the medical waste disposal,” Hojo announced. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you here by yourself.”

“Don’t trust me?” I asked, feeling self-satisfied.

“I trust you more than I trust the situation and the other people involved.” Hojo began tossing things into a red plastic container labeled Bio-Hazard. “Within certain parameters, I trust you a great deal. You aren’t motivated by the things Scarlet and Heideggar find important.”

“Except your death,” I pointed out dryly.

“Even so, only the desire is the same; your motivators remain different.” Hojo hefted the container. “They could kill you in the attempt to get me, and I can’t have that. Someone could eventually finish my work if I died, but they couldn’t replace you or the clone.” He motioned to the files. “Would you lock those away, please? The fire-proof safe in the corner.”

I did it, but only because I thought his research valid. I then followed him back down the corridor and into another room. This room gave me an uneasy feeling, as had the walk here. I couldn’t shake the idea we were being watched.

Hojo opened a chute in the wall and threw his container into it. He stripped off his gloves and tossed them in after it, then went to a hand sink to wash his hands. “Do I get a blood sample from you now or do you need further convincing?” he asked.

“I’ll give you a blood sample,” I relented. “But if that’s all you wanted, you didn’t have to bring us all here. So, what else do you need?”

He wiped his hands, not looking at me. “Blood is a renewable resource, but time isn’t. I don’t know how many samples I’ll need to take, Valentine.” 

Suddenly, I heard a loud, grinding click. Hojo stiffened. Going to the door, he tried it and couldn’t force it open. “Son of a fucking bitch!” he shouted, and hit the metal with his fist so hard it dented. “Valentine, if you can’t get us out of here, we’re fucked!”

Alarmed, I went to the door and attempted wrenching it open, but it was tight Shin-Ra security, the kind of door the company tended to use for places considered high-risk. It didn’t budge, and it seemed made of very thick steel. It surprised me Hojo had managed to even dent it, but he’d gone absolutely furious in the space of seconds, and anger always made people stronger.

“Goddamn, fucking, meddling, idiotic mother-buggering terrible two!” Hojo grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall just as I began to hear a hissing sound. Hojo stopped, extinguisher poised over his head. The strangest look came over his face. Abruptly, laughter escaped him. “Oh, brilliant!” he exclaimed. “Trapped inside with gas flooding the room, or attempt to get out the waste chute? It’s like a bad movie!”

“What sort of gas?” I put my nose in my sleeve. I hadn’t smelled anything yet. “Nerve toxin? Paralytic agent?” 

Hojo dropped the heavy canister without ever satisfying my curiosity as to what he meant to do with it. Still laughing, he pulled a lighter from his pocket. “Lift me,” he demanded, pointing toward the ceiling.

I couldn’t bear the thought of touching him, but I grabbed his legs and hoisted him high. He put the lighter to a sprinkler and it kicked on, drenching us in seconds.

“It isn’t deadly, don’t worry,” Hojo finally answered the moment I dropped him. “You won’t like its effects regardless.” He ran from chute to chute, opening them and peering inside. “Fuck! All of them thoroughly contaminated, of course! Even if they weren’t, we’d land in either a gigantic pile of medical waste or go straight to an incinerator!”

I could transform and get out that heavy door easily enough, but I’d probably go on a rampage and kill anyone and everyone in my path. Now very concerned, I grabbed Hojo’s sleeve as he stomped by me. “What is the gas?” I persisted.

He reversed my grip, seizing me around my wrist so hard I heard my bones creaking. “Help me get us out of here, Valentine, unless you want me fucking you across this floor!”

I wrenched free, took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Stop it, Hojo! Calm yourself and tell me what’s going on.” No, I most certainly didn’t want him fucking me across a floor. I’d kill him before he could attempt it, gas or not. 

Hojo worked loose of me, slippery as an eel. “It’s a gas designed to get specimens to procreate,” he panted. “I turned the sprinklers on to drop the room temperature, which makes the gas heavy and sink to the floor. But, in a few minutes we won’t be able to avoid breathing it.” He raced back to the small hand sink and opened the top cabinet, throwing things everywhere in the search for something. “We’re the same sex, so we won’t ever fucking stop! Or, we won’t ever stop fucking! With our strength it’s not a pleasant scenario.” 

Even as he spoke I caught a whiff of the strange gas. It made me lightheaded. My cock stirred to life. I watched him race back to a chute, a paper bag in both hands. To my horror, I found myself appreciating his looks and the way he moved.

“I’m going to throw this manganese nitrate down,” he said. “Grab that container of N-propyl alcohol and try to get the chute interior completely coated in it.”

I snatched the appropriate, two-gallon bottle and followed him. He ripped open the bag and began dusting the metal passage vigorously. “Mother-fucking Heideggar! I’m going to wring his fat neck!” His skin had taken on a green tint. Stressed, his body attempted a Jenova form.

I sent a wash of the alcohol down. Hojo threw the bag with force. I heard it hit from far below us. Hojo flicked his wrist, and a fireball zoomed down the shaft. He dragged me backward just before the resultant explosion. Flames burst from the chute.

“What good did that do?” I ranted. “All you’ve done is turn our exit into a burning pipe!”

“Shut the fuck up. I know what I’m doing. Did you want to coat yourself in raw medical waste on the way to the bottom?” Hojo strode to the wall, ripped another extinguisher down and tossed it to me. “Lock the nozzle open and throw it down. The pipe is sterile now, so do it!”

I saw what he intended, then, and did as he rudely demanded. The colder, pressurized contents of the extinguisher instantly cooled the shaft and stopped the fire. We now stood in a solution of ashes, water and powdered flame retardant. If the gas didn’t get us, electrocution would, because the water now threatened to climb halfway to our knees.

Hojo wrapped his lab coat around his left hand, muttering about saving his fingers. “Get in and try to control your slide,” he instructed sharply. “Go too slow and you’ll bottle-neck us at the fork. Go too fast and you won’t be able to choose the dump instead of the incinerator.”

“Which is which?” I climbed in. This was insane. The worst escape I’d ever had to make from Shin-Ra, and I did it at Hojo’s bidding.

“Left should be avoided at all costs,” he said grimly. Hojo started to climb in after me and I began to drop.

Thanks to how he’d burned the chute, I didn’t feel I picked up anything but ashes. However, the ashes made for slick travel. I had to gouge the metal wall with my clawed gauntlet to keep the fall controlled, which he further complicated by landing atop me.

I grunted in surprise at the feel of his hard, wiry body slamming into me. He started cussing again, his unintelligible, loud complaints echoing in the tight confines of the tube. Somehow, he managed to get one of his legs tangled in a strap on my shirt. His added weight caused me to lose my tenuous grip, and we plummeted.

Shit. I was going to die in a Shin-Ra evaporator.

I missed the right fork, but Hojo didn’t. He held me just inside the left hand branch, my strap snarled on his leg preventing me from moving further down. “Goddamn you, Scarlet!” he shouted. “Dragged to my death by a surly Turk!”

I felt his grip slipping. He lashed out with a tentacle, grabbing me about the waist. “No one needs _**tentacles**_ ,” he raged sarcastically. “Why are you modifying yourself with _**those**_ , Doctor Hojo?” He tugged, bringing me back up to the junction slowly. “Well, that’s three times in one week, Professor Gast, that I’ve used them, you sorry sack of shit!”

“Will you quit your madness for five seconds?” I seethed, punching a grip in the metal wall. Hojo squirmed under me like a lover on fire. We didn’t have enough room in here for him to pitch a fit. I felt the cramped quarters acutely, but him even more so. “Stop writhing like a bitch in heat and get your weight farther over!” 

“I _**am**_ writhing like a bitch in heat, you idiot!” Hojo burst out angrily. “I got a snoot-full of the gas!” To punctuate his point, he shoved upward against me. His cock ground against mine. “Get your right leg over me and start moving downward again! I can’t, because I’m jammed in!” His coherency collapsed into foreign cursing and spasms of panic.

If not for the fact that knocking him out meant dealing with him as dead weight, I’d have indulged myself. Not only had he offended me with grinding our genitals together, I just plain old _**felt**_ like doing him damage.

“Ow! Mother-fucker, Valentine!” Hojo protested as I maneuvered over him. “That’s my femoral artery you’re dancing on!”

“For fuck’s sake,” I growled, “calm yourself.” I managed to get my knee off his leg and move it to the side, straddling him. “I can’t move past you while you’re thrashing.” Digging my gauntlet tips into the hard metal made a terrible sound, one that made my teeth hurt. Hojo’s panting and ungodly wriggling got on my last nerve. 

I smelled the gas again, now, and cold water began to flow around us. The level had finally reached to the top of the chute, apparently. 

Drowning atop Hojo while we both had boners. Lovely. This had to be the worst experience of my life.

Hojo read my mind. “Flushed out of a Shin-Ra shit-chute!” he shouted. “Fucking poetic justice, that’s what it is! I’ll grind Scarlet and Heideggar into powder and snort them with my cocaine!”

Not if I got to them first. They’d firmly cemented themselves as my targets. They’d pay for this indignity if it was the last thing I ever managed. “This is all your fault,” I hissed, tangling in that infernal strap that also wrapped around Hojo’s leg. I’d get him, too. If not for his meddling I’d still be in Kalm, drinking imported rum and listening to that decent live band in the inn.

“I take credit for getting you involved,” he admitted, and to my horror I felt him rubbing against me. “I don’t, however, take credit for the stupidity of a meth-head whore and a fat, idiotic ass-wipe!” A hand grabbed my hip. I felt his fingers dig in, then relax and begin a slow, enticing journey upward. “Sweet Shiva, Valentine. You’re as hard and smooth as a marble anatomy study.”

“Get your hand off me,” I demanded, renewing my efforts to just get past him for the right fork of the duct. It was the gas making him act this way, so it had to be the gas that made me want to respond. The amount of water coming through here had me worried. With Hojo and I knotted together, acting as corks, we could indeed drown.

His hand felt beautiful on my skin. He’d wormed his way under my tight leather top and now traced my ribs with exquisite care. He had incredibly long fingers, strong for all their gentleness. 

His fucking persistent gentleness alone made me want to kill him.

“I can’t,” he confessed in a broken voice. “Holy Da-chao, I can’t stop.”

“You’ve got to.” I swallowed hard, attempting to move myself farther down and away from his stimulating touch. The strap tying us together wouldn’t break, and I couldn’t reach it no matter how I moved. “Try to get higher while I go lower.”

“I’m wedged in,” he protested. 

“Just try, damn you,” I insisted.

Hojo began squirming. “God-damn tight hole! Can you reach my boot?”

“Which one?” I was sweating now. Hojo kept caressing me, and I liked it.

“Left,” he said. “You should find a blade.”

With several minutes of searching, swearing and maneuvering, I managed to find the hilt of an impressive knife. I drew it out and worked it between us. Hojo inveigled a hand and grabbed it. “Give me your bandana,” he demanded, already tugging at the knot behind my head.

“What for?” I fought him a little.

“I’ll need a tourniquet.” Hojo jerked the cloth free. A second later I heard the sound of flesh separating from bone. Furiously, he began twisting. “I’m free. Go ahead and start moving down. It should be easier now.”

 

He’d cut off his right hand.

 

Before I could assimilate it, we were falling down the right fork.


	8. Chapter 8

We landed in the biggest pile of garbage I’d ever seen. Having worked for Shin-Ra many years, I’d nonetheless never taken particular notice of how the company got rid of waste. I considered this an unwelcome education.

Valentine landed on top of me, and completely shoved every last bit of wind from my lungs. The Turk weighed a ton. I rolled, desperate to draw air, but almost fifteen seconds elapsed before I could take my first good inhale. Too bad the air down here wasn’t exactly hospitable. 

“You cut your hand off,” he said, sounding almost accusing. Getting to his knees, he scanned the enormous heap. “Gods.” His voice held only truest disgust.

“It’ll grow back.” I tightened the tourniquet. Jesus, losing a hand hurt.

“How do we get out of here?” Valentine slid down, hitting the only available clear spot. “I don’t see any doors.”

I scanned the darkness. He could see better than I did, of course. I’d augmented him for night vision and not considered it for myself. I’d lost my glasses, too, fuck it all. Hoping they’d landed close, I started groping. Thank Shiva, I found them quickly.

I didn’t dare strike flame down here. Not only did we have leftover chemicals to contend with, the methane levels in this room soared past any safe zone. Even a static electric spark would blow us both to kingdom come. At least the methane seemed to counter-act the procreation gas. I no longer felt like fucking Valentine.

Well, to be honest with myself, I did still feel like fucking him, but not in our current state.

I made a controlled fall down the garbage mountain and came to stand beside my churlish companion. “There has to be some way out of here,” I insisted. “This isn’t a compactor or an incinerator. This mess must be carried away as-is, which disturbs me.”

“Why?” Valentine plucked a banana peel off his shoulder. “Shin-Ra is a planet-raping company that you work for; it shouldn’t bother you to know this stuff is just getting dumped somewhere.”

I ignored his deliberate attempt to get me to defend myself, and started fumbling with the bracelet in my pocket. I hoped it hadn’t been damaged by our trip into the bowels of hell. Hopefully the remote relay still functioned…

“What are you doing?” Valentine asked.

“Checking to make sure I can still use this thing.” The blinking light came on, relieving me. “Good, it’s still working.”

The floor under us vibrated in time with a tremendous clanging sound. Valentine looked down at me, red eyes blazing with accusing mistrust. I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t do that, whatever ‘that’ is.”

The floor shivered again, violently, and we were suddenly thrown onto our bellies. “Holy Shiva,” Valentine said. “I know what that is. We’re getting airlifted. They’re going to dump us.” He whirled on me. “This is completely your fault, and I’m not going to forget it, either.”

“What are you going to do, beat me up?” I demanded. “Save it for later.” I hit the remote on my bracelet. The clone would figure out what the sudden release of his locks meant. I couldn’t take a chance on leaving him to Shin-Ra’s tender mercies, and if I got carried too far away, the remote wouldn’t work. “Here, take this.” I got the bracelet off. “I can’t wear it with my watch.”

Valentine looked at the medic alert bangle full of materia and then back at me. Silently, he clamped it around his left wrist.

We began to move. I pondered if we’d get dumped on land or sea. It didn’t make much difference, really. We’d both survive the impact. I imagined he could swim, and I knew I could. Granted, I hadn’t been in a body of water for fifty years…

“You’re nothing but grief,” Valentine muttered, sitting up.

“Then you ought to like me, Valentine, because you wallow in grief,” I snapped back, irritated. “You’re aware the Hereafter doesn’t give points for hair-shirts and self-flagellation?”

He shoved me into the garbage, scowling with those beautiful lips. “How would you know?”

“Pretty little Cetra women tell me.” I got up and tried to scrape filth from my lab coat, but it’s difficult to do that one-handed. “Ifalna Gast told me a lot about the Promised Land.”

“Under duress, under torture,” he claimed.

“I never tortured the lady. Do you think I enjoy that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

Well, he was right. I did enjoy hurting the ones that stood in my way. But, Ifalna never stood in my way, only her hypocrite of a husband. He insisted I use Lucrecia in the Jenova Project, and he’d use his wife. But, when the chips were down, he’d backed out. I’d only done what anyone else would do.

“You have no idea what motivates me, how I feel, or any of my inner workings,” I told him. “You never cared to know. All you cared about was taking what belonged to me.”

To my satisfaction, Valentine flinched. Giving me his back, he retreated into silence.

To pass the time, I began taking inventory of what I had in my pockets. I had a habit of stowing things and forgetting about them. But, when one routinely has eight pockets, it’s easy to lose track. I didn’t have to check for my guns. The 454 had bruised me between my shoulder blades while in the waste duct, and the tranq gun felt heavy in my left inner front pocket.

I had a roll of suture string and a needle, a smashed sandwich, half a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, my knife and a block of paraffin I’d used to fix the sticky drawer in my office desk. I threw the sandwich away and sat on an overturned garbage can. I could feel my hand growing back. In a few hours it would form completely.

I didn’t mind losing that hand. I’d developed arthritis in it. This new one wouldn’t have such a painful, aggravating affliction. Too bad I couldn’t cut my head off to fix my insanity.

I must have nodded off, for suddenly Valentine was grabbing my shoulder and shaking me. “We’ve started hovering,” he said. In the next moment we were falling through the air with tons of refuse, heading directly for the ocean. 

It felt like hitting concrete.

Everything became pain and confusion. Water went down my esophagus, up my nose and into my ears. Garbage kept falling on me, shoving me under again and again. I heard Valentine cursing and thrashing, his dark, rasping voice indignant and disgusted.

Then, silence except for our coughing and the sound of an airship. I looked up and spied the craft. Scarlet and Heideggar stood side by side at the railing, waving at me. Furious, I flipped them the finger.

In retrospect, it wasn’t the best idea to further anger two people who enjoyed guns so much. I had to get under floating heaps of waste to avoid their bullets, but I didn’t manage to dodge them all. One tore into my shoulder and another into my side.

“Idiot!” Valentine shouted. “Do sharks mean anything to you?”

Oh, yes indeedy they meant something to me. All this blood and garbage would draw them quickly. I had to think of something.


	9. Chapter 9

From opposite sides of our garbage raft, we stared at each other. Hojo’s black eyes returned my aggression with relish, and I knew if I started something, he’d at least attempt to finish it. As I watched, he picked random bits of filth from his hair. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“No. I need a land mass for identification.” I thought we might be somewhere in the Corel Sea. The water felt warm but I caught an occasional draft of cold air, possibly from the frozen winds of Icicle Continent. If we drifted west we might reach Costa del Sol. If we drifted south, we’d maybe hit Junon. I just hoped we wouldn’t go north. I hated Bone Village.

“How long before the suture thread dissolves?” I asked. He’d used it to bind together this craft of used bio-hazard containers and random debris.

“Constantly wet by salt water, not long,” he answered, drawing his knife. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to make our shark friends grow in number. I have to get the bullets out of my shoulder and side.”

“You will not,” I told him. “Those bullets can wait until we’ve hit land.”

Hojo gave me a thousand-yard stare. Slowly, he put the knife away. “If I turn violently psychotic, Turk, you have only yourself to blame,” he said. “Lead going septic isn’t pretty.”

“Go psychotic on me and I’ll kill you,” I promised. “I’m only waiting for an excuse.”

He smiled. “I know,” he disclosed. “But, you might find it harder than you think. I probably look frail, but I promise I’m as tough as a cockroach.”

I gave myself permission to look at him objectively. No, he didn’t look frail. A bit delicate, yes. He had sharp cheekbones, and a sort of fey body structure. Not feminine. He wasn’t a manly bodybuilder, but neither did he have an effeminate mien. He looked utterly masculine despite his smaller manufacture. He appeared fit and capable, and I reluctantly admitted to myself he had a certain grace.

I hated that when being objective, I could see his appeal. 

Scanning, I saw our shark escorts seemed to be dwindling in number. We’d started with five, but now I only saw three. Thank Shiva Hojo had managed to build the raft before they started circling us in earnest. I didn’t relish the notion of getting torn to pieces.

Did I see land? We’d floated for hours.

“Is that a dolphin coming toward us?” Hojo asked, pointing in the opposite direction.

I turned. The creature he saw seemed to indeed be a dolphin. A memory hit me. Cloud learned basic CPR in the attempt to save a little girl from a drowning death in Junon harbor. What did he say her name was? Priscilla? She’d had a pet dolphin. Cloud used the dolphin, too, giving it commands with a whistle.

The dolphin’s name? I searched my memory harder. Ugh. There it was. Mr. Dolphin. How original.

“Whistle,” I commanded Hojo.

“What?” He looked at me like I might be insane.

“Whistle,” I repeated. “I might know that dolphin.”

“You might know that dolphin,” he repeated. “Do you make friends everywhere you go, Valentine?” He turned and sent a shrill whistle over the water. Hope stirred within me as the animal immediately began moving in our direction. Hojo laughed shortly. “I’m dying to know how you acquainted yourself with a dolphin.”

I didn’t answer. If this was indeed…Mr. Dolphin, he’d take care of these sharks and get us to land.

With greatest pleasure I saw the sharks scattering. The dolphin swam right up to the side of the raft and hung his head over the side, chittering. Cautiously, I put out a hand and patted him. “Mr. Dolphin?” I asked, feeling like an idiot for saying the name out loud.

But, the dolphin responded. He swam around and around us a few times, making that high pitched clicking sound. Hojo, laughing harder, reached out and stroked the animal. “Thanks for getting rid of the sharks,” he said, sounding sincere.

“Mr. Dolphin, we need to get to Priscilla,” I said, hoping the name of his mistress would get us to firm soil. “Priscilla,” I repeated, grabbing Hojo and beginning to yank his lab coat off. It had enough length to serve as a leash if the dolphin held it in his teeth.

“Hey, what are you…?” Hojo fought me.

“Give me your fucking lab coat if you want to make land,” I said harshly.

Hojo took some things out of his pockets, then handed me the coat without another word. I crouched and held one end out to the dolphin. “Pull us, please.”

As if the dolphin did this every day, it began pulling. I secured Hojo’s coat to the raft, noticing the suture thread seemed weaker. Hopefully it would last as long as we needed it. I sat and let hope grab on with a set of flippers and krill teeth.

“Who is Priscilla?” Hojo asked, sitting almost directly beside me.

“Cloud saved her from drowning. She lived in Junon.” I didn’t like having him so close. But, the weight seemed better distributed like this, and it possibly made the craft easier for the dolphin to pull.

Hojo fell to silence for awhile, lulling me into a false sense of security. When he spoke I almost jumped out of my skin. “You’re an interesting person,” he said, his tone conversational. “You keep people at arm’s length and still make friends. How do you accomplish that?”

I’d always attracted attention, always. No matter how coldly I rebuffed a person, they came back for more. I’d avoided serious relationships for that reason. Lucrecia had been the first person I’d truly extended myself for, in any capacity.

“You don’t know?” Hojo chuckled. “I can make a guess, but I prefer not to guess.”

“Thrill me,” I said, thinking if he put forth a good, serious answer, I’d have to re-think his perception.

“You’re beautiful.” Hojo shrugged. “My son had the same effect on people. They were always willing to forgive him for his sins because of his looks.” He adjusted his glasses, then began a half-hearted attempt at cleaning them with salt water and the hem of his ripped shirt. “People just respond better to attractive people.”

Shiva help me, he was probably right. I drew stares no matter what I wore or where I might be. The older I became, the less patience I had with it, too. I felt like I never relaxed. Eyes rested upon me at all times. Even now, I had Hojo’s eyes upon me.

“You have Soldier’s Heart,” Hojo said softly. “Did you know that?”

I didn’t even know what that was. I said nothing.

“It’s also called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Hojo informed. “I probably kicked you over the edge myself, but I believe you started developing the disorder while still a Turk.”

I didn’t know why he thought I’d believe anything he said. “That’s very interesting,” I said flatly. “Shut up.”

To my surprise, he did. He resumed picking refuse from his hair and fussing with the contents of his pockets. Not an hour afterward, I spied land.


	10. Chapter 10

Junon.

I hated this town. It gasped for air underneath a Shin-Ra port, suffocating from machinery and concrete when once it thrived as a small, healthy community of fishermen and trades-people. It reminded me too much of Wutai, especially since Shin-Ra had ruined that country in the same way. Building, occupying, conquering…

“Fuck,” I heard Valentine mutter. “Look above us.”

I paused in putting on my coat, eyes going to the rebuilt Sister-Ray canon. The place crawled with men on obvious but shoddy surveillance. They smoked, drank, waved their guns around and talked at top voice. We hadn’t heard them until coming much closer than the shoreline, because the sound of the tide concealed other noise.

“Take that damned coat off. It’s white and will draw their eyes,” my brooding companion insisted.

He had a point. I rolled up my coat and shoved it under a large rock. I hated to lose it, but I saw little alternative. “They must be on the lookout for us,” I mused, following Valentine into concealing shadows. He moved like a wraith out here. If not for his voice I’d barely know where he stood.

“They have reasons to want us out of circulation,” he agreed. “We need to get out of this town.”

“And go where?” I’d nurtured hopes of getting clean clothes and a hot meal tonight.

Valentine sighed heavily. “We need a blue chocobo. Actually, even a yellow one would serve to get us farther away from Heideggar’s favorite stomping ground.”

“Well, it won’t hurt my feelings to abandon Junon,” I whispered. “You and your friends almost killed me here.”

“I suppose you prefer Costa del Sol?” he asked archly. “That’s where we found you drinking rum and relaxing with beach bunnies.”

“Whores,” I corrected. “A man gets lonely.”

“I thought you liked men.” He pulled me farther back into a shadowy rock formation.

“Do I have to commit?” I couldn’t believe his gall. “So criticizes a man who could have had anyone and chose a married woman!”

“Don’t talk about her.” His voice became dangerous. “Just don’t, Hojo.”

“Fine.” I leaned my head on a rock and shut my eyes. “She really did think a lot about you, though, even before you two started carrying on. She really admired your father. Now there was a top-notch scientist, let me tell you.”

“My… father?” Valentine said softly. “I didn’t know him. He stayed at Shin-Ra while I…” He stopped talking abruptly. “We don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here, on foot if by no other means.”

“I’m game.” I stood straight. “If we go right from here we’ll pass through the slum village and pop out in the Junon Area Grasslands. I think we might catch a yellow chocobo somewhere out there.” I grabbed his arm, feeling him recoil in shock. “Don’t panic. My hand has grown back and I want my bracelet.” I felt naked without all that materia. “I have chocobo lure materia.”

“Give me my bandana, then.” Valentine sounded like he spoke through gritted teeth.

“It’s bloody,” I warned.

“Even your blood doesn’t bother me.”

We made the exchange. I released my gun holster and passed him my 454, too. “You’re probably the better shot, so take it,” I said. “It only has six rounds.”

Though I couldn’t see him, I felt his sudden discomfiture. Briefly, his fingers glided over mine in the taking of my gun, making me shiver. A small, small sound escaped his lips. “Is this the gun you shot me with, Hojo?” he asked.

“Heavens, no. There wouldn’t have been anything left of your bowels if I’d used this gun.” True, that. “I’m not surprised you didn’t get a good look at the 357. The lab was quite dark and you looked more at my face than the weapon.”

He didn’t move or speak for a long time. Then, I heard him strapping on the gun. “We’ll need to find greens for the chocobo,” he muttered.

I followed him to the edge of town. We walked up past the inn, and I looked at the invitingly lit windows, knowing warmth and food lay just outside my reach. I’d never taken cold well, and I was still so damp from being in the ocean.

We managed to make it out of lower Junon safely. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. To keep my teeth from rattling and making noise, I clamped my lips firmly together. God, could I use that lab coat now. It afforded little protection, but I’d take that little bit in a heart beat.

“What’s wrong with you?” Valentine asked quietly. “You’re never quiet this long.” He hadn’t spoken either, not since we’d started following the snake-like border of an ocean inlet.

“S-s-s-o-o c-cold,” I managed to say.

“I can’t do anything about that.” He kept walking, and I knew he didn’t feel a bit concerned over my discomfort. I could hardly blame him.

We walked hours. I had plenty of stamina, but the stress of the day had me stretched thin. I’d been attacked, gassed, thrown into garbage, dumped in the ocean, been circled by sharks, and now Valentine seemed determined to test my mettle by gross physical exertion.

I found mimmet greens by accident when bending to re-tie my bootlace; I’d crushed some of them and released their peculiar, oregano-mint smell. Saying nothing, I tore up several bunches and used a bit more of my dwindling suture supply to bind them to my belt loop.

The sun came up. Finally, Valentine seemed satisfied we’d walked far enough. He pointed to a rocky place on the shoreline, his red eyes intent. “I remember this. The Little Bronco barely fit in the channel. There should be a very small cave.”

Pathetically grateful, I followed him at a stagger. My belly complained, now, and I wished I had that nasty, smashed sandwich I’d pitched while in the garbage heap. Granted, it would now be contaminated with ocean-water and bio-hazard soup, but I’d still eat it.

The cave appealed to me for many reasons, the first being it seemed fairly dry. The second reason? No one could spot it from the air. I barely made out the entrance from the ground.

Once inside, Valentine began kicking at a pile of driftwood. He revealed a ratty sleeping bag and a canteen. “No fire,” he ordered. “It won’t draw properly in here and it’ll attract attention.”

“You s-sound like y-you know from experience.” I grabbed the dirty cloth and wrapped it around me. “AVALANCHE stopped here?”

“Yes. That’s Cloud’s old bedroll you’ve wound around yourself.” He sat and gave me his typical, red-eyed stare. “It didn’t protect him, so he left it.”

“I’m grateful,” I answered, enjoying the small heat I’d managed to trap. “I take it we’re heading north?”

The smallest, ghostly smile moved Valentine’s lips. “Not much of an outdoors-man, are you?”

“Not at all.” I didn’t like his superior demeanor, but I felt too tired and cold to make an issue of it. However, he didn’t need to seem so smug. No, I couldn’t rub two sticks together to start a fire, but I doubted he could extract a septic appendix.

“Yes, we’re heading north. If we find our way blocked by Shin-Ra, we still have many options open.” He made himself comfortable in loose sand. “You can take your bullets out, now.”

“I’d forgotten,” I blurted. With nearly numb fingers, I managed to drag my knife from its holster. I’d sterilize it with my fire materia and get to work.

“You’re really just going to go digging around inside yourself with that pig-sticker,” Valentine said.

“What choice do I have?” I hit the knife with fire materia, then took off my shirt and started cutting. It really hurt, but not as much as I thought it might. I supposed I might be too tired to pay much attention to pain. That happened sometimes.

The first one, the one in my shoulder, came out easily. The second one took some real digging. Once finished, I cleaned the knife as best I could and stretched out. I’d quit bleeding in a few minutes, thankfully. “May I catch some sleep?” I asked Valentine.

“Asking my permission for something?” Valentine chuckled darkly. “Oh, how quickly tables can turn.”

“Spare me your sarcasm.” I turned to look at him. The phosphorescence of the moss in here made for fairly easy viewing, even of a man who made shadows his kith and kin. “I just want your consent to sleep. I’m very tired and I’ve had a busy few weeks. It takes a lot out of a man to be alert for assassins every moment of every day, and I haven’t slept well in more than two months.”

My speech actually got a small reaction from him. He lifted an eyebrow. “If you’d just stop working in that nest of zolom,” he began, but I cut him off.

“And fail to find a cure for X2Geostigma?” I wouldn’t drop my quest to conquer that disease, not for him or for anyone. “Do you not see how many people are sick or dying from this illness? What if it mutates further? It’s like cancer, Valentine, an overprotective response to fight the last lingering malignancy of Jenova. It could overrun us all in a matter of months or years.”

Worn out from my sudden explosion, I closed my eyes. “Shin-Ra has the gil and the equipment I need. And no, I’m not being all that altruistic; I have my own plans and experiments to pursue. Still, they’re all on hold until I can get a handle on this disease. I’ve worked on nothing else for months, ever since I realized the severity of the thing. Unfortunately, Scarlet and Heideggar don’t share my enthusiasm for beating Geostigma.”

“And, Rufus Shinra is gone,” Valentine added. “He was your only support, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.” Shiva, I felt I could just pass right out. “Baby Shinra supported the research. He’d come down with Geostigma in its first form, but mysteriously recovered.”

“Holy Rain of Great Gospel,” Valentine said quietly. “It’s why Cloud recovered, too. It was Aerith Gainsborough’s last limit break. She sent the holy rain to the planet when Cloud fought the Sephiroth clones.”

This stirred my interest despite being exhausted. “She’s dead, though.”

“She’s an Ancient.” Valentine shrugged. “We don’t entirely know what a Cetra is capable of even in the afterlife.” He drew my gun and put it across his legs. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll wake you at dusk.”

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes again and surrendered.


	11. Chapter 11

He didn’t even twitch, not once. I sat and stared at him for two hours, waiting for some sign that he only fucked with me about his fatigue. But, even though he lay there, shirtless and shivering, still slightly bleeding, he remained fast asleep.

He hadn’t complained about my punishing pace tonight, though even _**I**_ felt a bit tired from our speed and distance covered. He hadn’t complained about anything, actually, not even his hunger. I heard his belly growling intermittently.

I felt impressed with him despite myself. He had firm convictions and great endurance. And, I no longer had to guess about his motivation for curing Geostigma. The truth burned in his dark eyes while he’d ranted softly, his voice firm and clear. He wanted to cure this disease.

Another feather in his cap?

Perhaps. He’d cured two diseases that I knew of already. If he succeeded here, X2Geostigma would be his third. For a crazy, selfish madman, he did occasionally do generous deeds. I couldn’t credit him with too much generosity, though. For Hojo, a problem might have much interest and challenge without his consideration of the issue itself. Diseases and such were puzzles, and he liked puzzles.

His gun…

I turned it over, admiring the craftsmanship. It had power, but did it have accuracy? I itched to find out. I’d loved the pinpoint correctness of the Sniper CR, but it hadn’t the same stopping power as Death Penalty. That fool Foley had taken Cerberus. It probably hung on Heideggar’s office wall now, as a trophy.

I clenched my gauntlet into a fist. I’d get my gun back. I’d get revenge against that fat, sweating moron and his cruel little protégé. They’d known I was with Hojo, had somehow watched us enter the bio-hazard disposal room. How they must have enjoyed the idea of getting a Shin-Ra enemy and their current, resident irritant in one blow. 

I hoped Cloud and Tifa were all right. The two orderlies, Robert and Renee, seemed genuine in their duty to protect Hojo’s valued prisoners. Perhaps they’d helped them escape.

“Not now, Sephiroth,” Hojo mumbled. “You promised you’d read before practicing katas.” He added something unintelligible and went silent. Regardless of his audible activity, he didn’t physically move.

It must be difficult to be insane _**and**_ unloved.

He had more scars than I did. I’d found it hard not to stare at him while he removed his bullets. By his unflinching silence, I knew I looked at a man well familiar with hurting. Someone, or more than one person, had beaten him repeatedly, and long ago. None of his marks looked any more recent than decades past. They gleamed like silvery slug trails in moonlight, crosshatching his hairless chest and arms with near-deliberate precision. 

I knew AVALANCHE wasn’t responsible for those marks. When battling us, he’d gone into two separate Jenova forms, and they’d taken damage very well. Even supposedly dying on the Sister Ray, the only blood I’d seen from him came from his mouth. Internal bleeding, I’d supposed.

It made me flinch inside, but I was starting to find him as interesting as he claimed he felt about me. He seemed quite resourceful, could act quickly and with cleverness. I hadn’t credited him enough.

I squirmed, remembering the delicate finesse of his hands. Holy Shiva, could he incite a person’s nerve endings, and in mere seconds. Being familiar with the human body aided him in this, I felt sure. Nothing like having the attention, (positive or negative) of a person who’d immersed themselves in countless years of medical schooling. I’d have never imagined responding to him like that, not even under the influence of such a specialized gas.

It spoke of my mental state that I could sit here and stare at Hojo while thinking of his touch. I needed to get a grip. Stress, that’s what it was. Traveling with a bitter enemy after finding myself inside the nightmare that was Shin-Ra. Any man could find himself acting or thinking strangely after the day I’d had.

I decided to risk sleeping awhile. This cave had the advantage of being well hidden and with only one way in or out. Even if Heideggar’s men found the bio-hazard raft’s remains on Junon’s shore, they wouldn’t know what direction we’d taken. I could rest and freshen up without too much concern.

I put my back to Hojo, but moved closer to him. He had as much to gain by vigilance as I, so I could count on using him as an ally if our defenses were breached. So thinking, I put my head down and relaxed.

What a day.


	12. Chapter 12

I lay near something very warm and very solid. Enjoying, I lolled fully upon the object. Suddenly, I felt a gun barrel pressing into my forehead. “You’d better be asleep and unaccountable for your actions,” Valentine’s raspy voice vowed.

I shook awake and sat up. “Where are we?” I asked, not waking up like a mental giant.

“Inside a cave, remember?” Valentine sat up to stare at me with suspicion.

“Oh.” Yes, I did remember now. I returned his stare. “Sorry. You were warm and I never fully shook off my chill.”

He seemed to relax marginally. Lowering the 454, he gave me a short nod. “You don’t have a mysterious gas for an excuse this time,” he reminded.

What a homophobe. He’d enjoyed some of my attention, I felt certain of that. Poor bastard probably hadn’t been laid properly since my wife died. “Your beauty is offset by aggressiveness,” I told him. “There’s no need to make a big production of your heterosexuality.”

He gave me a long, strange look that I couldn’t quite decipher. Holstering my 454, he stood and stretched. I admired him openly, knowing from experience he was strong, flexible and tough. It would please me no end to have him wrapped around me. I could find out what Lucrecia found so pleasurable about him. Though, it didn’t take a lot of imagination…

“Ready?” he asked brusquely, and it seemed less a question than an order.

“Yes.”

Once outside in the cool night, I began shivering again. Jenova’s vulnerability to cold transferred to any person with her cells, but Valentine didn’t seem affected. He strode on, outwardly oblivious to the temperature or the darkness.

“We need a decent chocobo,” he said suddenly. “Midgar is too hot on the alert for us for such slow plodding. There’s a chocobo farm to the east. That’s where we’re going.”

Well, good. A chocobo farm meant shelter and eggs. I was famished.

“They won’t expect us to drop south from Kalm,” Valentine continued. “We’ll buy a chocobo or steal one, skim the coastline in a northerly direction, then camp in Kalm a day or two.”

“You live in Midgar?” I asked.

He sighed. “What’s it to you, Hojo?”

“I only want to know why you haven’t dumped me to go in your own direction,” I answered. “It’s a reasonable question. You could go anywhere.”

He made a fist and picked up his pace. “Cloud and Tifa are trapped at Shin-Ra. I can’t abandon them.”

“They’re probably long gone,” I admitted, though it meant losing my protective detail. “I released their door locks while we stood in the garbage heap.”

He whirled on me, stopping dead in his tracks. “Why would you just let them go?” 

“I can’t have the clone killed.” He just couldn’t believe my motivation. “How can I find a cure without him?”

Valentine, red eyes powerfully intent, kept staring at me. “I’ll accept that,” he said begrudgingly. 

“How gracious!” I threw my arms wide. “Sweet Jesus, Valentine! What do I have to do? You want me to declare my intentions in blood? Maybe I should bind my soul to a demon on revelation of falsehood?”

“Hell wouldn’t have you,” he answered, taking off and leaving me standing there.

I ran to catch up. “I really don’t care for your attitude,” I said, “but, I’ll admit it’s only natural.”

“My attitude is in direct proportion to how many times I’ve seen you commit crimes against nature and humanity,” Valentine retorted. “I’m a living testament to your diabolical ingenuity.”

“Yes, you are,” I agreed. “You’re a perfect example of my genius and my divine spark of inspiration. I took an extraordinary Turk and made him into an undead god!”

“I didn’t want to become a god!” Valentine shouted, still walking, fury radiating off of him in hot, black waves. “I’m not like your deluded son, Hojo! Divinity doesn’t appeal to me!”

Struck by his words, I halted. The idea he wouldn’t have wanted to be better hadn’t entered my mind. If that was true, I’d committed a terrible crime against his very soul.

I didn’t like this feeling. It coiled in my chest like a serpent, striking soft, tender parts of me.

“Never even occurred to you,” Valentine spat, coming back to me. “It never even entered your mind I wouldn’t welcome your version of immortality.” He chuckled. “God, that’s so typical of you. You wouldn’t know how to be human if someone gave you lessons.”

I clutched at my heart. Holy shit. I’d gone overboard with this one. I thought he’d welcome a life of near invulnerability. He was a Turk for Shiva’s sake! They had a lifespan roughly equivalent to a fruit fly. I’d believed he’d take the indignity of me locking him away once he realized I’d made him everlasting.

I had no business attempting to psychoanalyze him, apparently; I couldn’t grasp even his most basic desires. How arrogant of me. How blind, foolish and presumptuous. I couldn’t even apologize for this.

“Hojo?”

I heard him, but I couldn’t answer. I just stared into the darkness, hoping it would swallow me.

I always did this. If I intended to help someone, I harmed them. If I intended harm, I utterly destroyed. It was a fatal flaw in my reasoning and my humanity, like Valentine said.

Suddenly, I felt very, very cold. I felt like I’d never be warm again.


	13. Chapter 13

“Hojo?” I prodded him with a claw. He didn’t move or even blink. He looked like a statue. “Hojo,” I said a third time, reaching out to shake him. The moment my hand clamped upon him, he gave a mighty flinch and drew away from me.

“I’m here,” he said distinctly. “Sorry.”

I didn’t know what his brief moment of being near-comatose meant, but I dismissed it. We had to keep moving. Saying nothing, I continued on. He followed, but almost noiselessly.

We walked without mishap or encountering monsters all night. I didn’t trust that. Nearly every step AVALANCHE took, we’d fought monsters of varying strength. This made two nights Hojo and I didn’t go up against anything stronger than our own weariness.

Roughly an hour to dawn we found another cave. This one looked terribly cramped. I hated the idea of trying to sleep in an eight foot long, four foot wide cave. It seemed like a large coffin. Since I no longer punished myself by sleeping in one, this seemed a step backward. Too, I’d have to lie nearly against Hojo.

He hadn’t spoken a word to me all night.

When I gestured for him to go in first, he merely nodded and crawled through the tiny opening. I waited for him to settle, then followed. He’d smashed himself against the sandstone, facing the opposite wall. I gingerly got on my back beside him and stared at the rock ceiling. I figured we had less than two feet of ceiling clearance in here. Claustrophobia threatened to unman me.

“It’s just a pocket in rock,” he whispered. “I hate enclosed places.”

We shared a fear, then. I felt like snapping at him, like denying I felt uncomfortable in here, but I didn’t. “We’ll have to take it,” I answered. “Moving about in the day is too dangerous.”

He sighed, but it sounded jerky and stressed. “Maybe I can pretend.”

“I often do,” I said before I could think better of it.

“You? How could _**you**_ be afraid of this?” Hojo’s disbelieving tone set my teeth on edge.

“You locked me into a space much smaller than this, and I stayed there for decades,” I reminded. “Being in torpor doesn’t mean lack of awareness. I heard every drop of water, every squeak of every rodent. I even heard the spiders spinning their webs.”

Hojo drew in a long, shaky breath. “You weren’t supposed to,” he said softly. “I gave you something to prevent that.”

“I overcame it in days.” I closed my eyes. “I slept like a hunted thing.”

Silence descended again. Hojo’s breathing didn’t settle much. I drifted with my own thoughts for awhile, but jerked from them when I felt him touch my shoulder. “Using you for an anchor,” he said tightly. “I’m sorry, I really am, but if I’m not touching something real, I’m going to lose it.”

His touch didn’t feel _unbearably_ intrusive. He didn’t grip hard, but he held me firmly. I relaxed and let him have that comfort. It didn’t cost anything, and it kept him from making an issue of himself. Too, after a few minutes I found it helped me slightly as well. 

Touching something real…

What made me more real than the surrounding rock?


	14. Chapter 14

Another night of plodding along.

I needed water and something to eat or I’d not be of any use. “Valentine,” I said, drawing his attention. “You’re made to exist with little sustenance, but I’m less hardy.”

“You’re hungry,” he murmured, stopping. “The hunting here is poor, Hojo.”

I sighed. “How long before we reach the chocobo ranch?”

“We’ll be there before dawn,” he answered. “Another two hours, most likely.” He gave me a hard look. “You can wait that long?”

It wasn’t a question at all.

“Of course,” I relented, beginning to follow him once more. It seemed unwise to challenge him at this point. 

We’d walked half our distance before he spoke again. “You said I’m not a vampire.”

“Correct.”

“Why, then, do I enjoy blood?” he asked. “I… want it.”

“Do you?” I felt surprised. “Perhaps Lucrecia is to blame for that; I didn’t augment you with any vampiric desires or abilities.”

He made a growling sound. “Why would she do that? _**How**_ would she do that?”

“She made a study of vampires.” I cast my mind back to the bestial creature she’d kept in Observation Lab Nine. “They do exist, you know, not just in legend but in fact.” My wife had spent a lot of time playing with that half animal, half-human creature, but she hadn’t shared much of her notes or thoughts about him. “As to the how and why, I have no clue. She had as many radical ideas as I did, and just as little compunction to act upon them. Maybe she thought you needed vampiric skills.”

I found it interesting she might have tampered with Valentine this way. Vampires didn’t make gestational offspring, but created ‘children’ by a series of blood exchanges. They were sterile, but far from sexless. I remembered her speaking of her vampiric test subject’s high sex drive. “You don’t recall her talking of any special serums, or of injecting you with such?”

“I…” Valentine put a hand to his forehead. “There was so much…” Frustration leaked from his tone. “Anything she wanted, I gave.”

“Sucks, huh?” I commented. “Women like her come along once in a lifetime.”

He nodded shortly. “So…”

“So, what should you do about craving blood?” I finished for him.

“Yes.”

“I suggest you indulge. If you want it, you probably need it.”

“What if I turn into a real vampire?” He whispered his question. “I have enough worries without avoiding the sun and finding prey.”

“Vampires just dislike the sun, Valentine; solar radiation doesn’t automatically fry a vampire to a crisp. And, who says you have to kill to get your blood? A man like you can surely convince people to part with a little blood.” His reluctance would have amused me had I not already had a similar crisis many years back. Jenova cells made a person less than human. “Just bat your eyelashes at the donor of choice and you’ll have the blood presented to you at break-neck speed.”

Valentine gnashed his teeth; I heard it. “I don’t operate that way.”

“I’m sure you don’t. But, is it so bad to learn a little social interaction in order to satisfy a craving?” He had such hang-ups. I took the blame for a lot of them, too. “If it bothers you to imagine a random selecting process, find a steady donor and leave it at that. You have a lot of friends. I’m sure one of them wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m not drinking the blood of my friends.” Valentine started walking faster, his head held high and his back like an iron rod. “I have enough troubles without begging blood.”

“That’s obvious, but if your yearning for blood gets very strong, you may not have a choice. I suggest you head off blood frenzy by choosing your time and donor.” I had to almost sprint to keep up with him now.

“And what if I pick you, Hojo?” He turned on me, grabbing me by the shoulders. “There’s no one else out here!”

My heart began an excited thumping. I looked into his red, angry eyes, seeing with a thrill how close he really was to carrying out his threat. His entire body trembled with suppressed hunger, with high passion.

“Then, I suggest you let me get nourishment of my own first,” I said quietly. “If you don’t, it might be inconvenient for us both. I’ve never been attacked by a vampire, so I don’t know if I can generate blood quickly enough for a feeding. I imagine I’d need some water in my system to make it beneficial for you.”

He stared at me. Suddenly, he let go and began walking again. “I’m not giving in,” he vowed. “I’m not feeding another demon.”

I had no doubt Valentine would starve himself if he felt he had to. Still, I’d have to watch him closely now. If it seemed he’d have to drink blood, I’d make it impossible for him to refuse mine. I wanted to know what it would be like to donate blood to him, to see how long he could last, to measure how my blood helped his health. 

In another hour we did reach the chocobo ranch. Valentine left me outside the barn while he went to the accompanying house, claiming I’d frighten the occupants. I didn’t see what he meant by that. I looked no worse than he did. Still, he probably knew these farmers already, and if they knew me it was by reputation.

My reputation really, really sucked.

“They’ll let us sleep in the stables,” Valentine said upon his return. “And, they’ll lend us a chocobo if we do some household maintenance. I’ll muck out the stalls if you fix the water pump on the feeding trough.”

That he’d volunteer to shovel shit surprised me. Still, he might not have basic plumbing skills. I agreed and followed him into the stables.

After a few minutes of examination, the water pump’s problem became clear. I cleaned algae and debris from the inner workings, then made sure the o-ring held tight. Once I had everything back in place, I tightened the barrel chamber and reattached the pump.

“It works,” I announced, standing. My heart gave a wild leap as I turned and walked right into Valentine, who’d apparently been standing behind me the entire time I worked. “What the fuc-?”

He wrenched my head back by a handful of my hair. Two seconds later, his teeth pierced my throat. 

Valentine hadn’t been able to resist feeding a demon after all.

Oh, _**sweet Shiva.**_

I melted. Nothing else could describe the liquefaction of my bones. Only my cock seemed hard, now. My vision dimmed, but didn’t darken entirely. I hung limp, utterly unconcerned with anything but the pleasure and pain he caused. He could drain every last drop of my blood, leave me a dried up husk, and I wouldn’t care. I didn’t think anything could feel this good. 

But, true to the Turk’s basic, contrary nature, he changed my mind for me. 

I stiffened in shock and delight as his clawed, gauntleted hand, began roving me. He slid underneath my shirt, scraping me with sharp, hard, cold metal and the hot leather glove at his palm. Wandering, interested, he felt my chest and dragged those razor points downward to my abdomen. I felt my skin parting into bleeding, throbbing runnels. 

And, it felt so fucking good. I liked some pain, and he gave just enough. The balance of hot/cold, hurt/bliss sent me over the edge in seconds, pushing me into a blistering, heart-stopping orgasm. But, a dry orgasm. I didn’t shoot. I just hung in his grip, gasping, riding the incredible wave.

Suddenly, I was in the water trough. Valentine, growling, fangs exposed, hung over me with his red eyes ablaze. He tore at my shirt, ripping it off in seconds, panting and trembling all over. He meant to fuck me.

And then, the haze abruptly lifted from his eyes. He staggered backward, clutching at his forehead and shaking his head. Charming confusion settled upon him, and he looked down at me like I’d dropped from a moon. “What the hell?” he rasped, leaning heavily upon the water pump.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. Painfully, I climbed from the trough. “You attacked me.”

Valentine ran his tongue over the point of one fang, eyes traveling to my bleeding scrapes. “Such is evident,” he answered. “What did you do to provoke me?”

“As far as I know, nothing.” I picked up my shirt, or, rather, the shredded remains of my shirt. I couldn’t wear this anymore. “Maybe you DO have to drink blood, Valentine. Its plain you felt a great desire for mine. Perhaps hating me makes it easier to take initiative.”

He shuddered, turned away from me, and stared at the back of the stable. Slowly, he picked up a pitchfork and began his part of the bargain.


	15. Chapter 15

I couldn’t believe I’d snapped. I usually found self-control quite easy. Early in my life, I’d mastered impulse. Training as a Turk had further helped me learn how not to give in to immediate wants. But, I’d attacked Hojo and sunk my teeth in him.

I cast him a glance. He had another pitchfork, helping me. The chocobos paid him no mind. He wandered around them, stopping every so often to pat one on the head. His back looked whole enough, but his chest and stomach still bled a little. Oh yes, those were my marks. I couldn’t deny that.

He began whistling. The chocobos began imitating him. Laughing in delight, he began playing a game of song with them. When they began their little, bobbing dance, he bowed back. 

He was so capricious in temper. There he stood, communicating with those big, bright yellow birds with a quick laugh and obvious enjoyment. He didn’t care I’d attacked him. Every so often he had to stop and wipe blood from his neck, using the remains of his shirt.

He couldn’t wander around shirtless. I’d have to ask Chocobo Billy if he had something Hojo could wear.

Drinking his blood had set me aflame with the need to possess his body. Would it be like that with every victim? I felt better for having sipped at his artery, I knew that. I felt stronger, more alert, yet also calmer than I had in a very long time.

I needed to feed Hojo or he wouldn’t get much more traveling accomplished. So thinking, I washed my hands in the trough and went back to see Billy.

“Finished already?” the old man asked as I strode through his back kitchen door. By the smell he was cooking breakfast.

“No, but I need to get food into my companion,” I answered. “Can you provide it, and how should I pay?”

“Any friend of Cloud Strife is a friend of mine,” he said. “Just stay right there and I’ll make something for your pal. I have plenty.” He started cracking eggs into a bowl and adding various ingredients. “You two need anything else?”

Billy had ever proved a good man.

I nodded. “His shirt is ruined. Do you have an old one you don’t mind giving him?”

Billy squinted at me. “He my size?”

I thought they might be close enough and I told him so.

“Go into my bedroom and find a flannel shirt. For traveling, there’s nothing more comfortable or as warm.” He started cooking in earnest. “He’s not as hardy as you, I suppose.”

“No, he isn’t,” I agreed. I went to the bedroom and found a black and green check-pattern flannel shirt, then returned. “This one?”

Billy glanced over. “Yeah, sure.” He pulled a pan of sausages off the stove and put five on a plate, along with an omelet and some fried apples. Adding three slices of buttered toast, he gave me the steaming plate of food and a fork. “Sorry you two can’t stay in the house, but with my relatives here, there’s just no room.”

“It’s no issue,” I assured. “We’re grateful for all you’ve given.”

Billy grinned. “I’m grateful for the breeding stock your friend Cloud sent my way. He bred some fine racers for the Golden Saucer, then gave them over to me. I’ve pulled myself out of poverty because of that spiky-headed boy.” He pushed me toward the door. “Now, go feed your traveling companion and get some rest. I’ll keep people out of the stables today. Birds need a break same as you do, anyway.”

I left. The moment I entered the stables, which were now spotless and full of fresh hay, Hojo came up and snatched the food from me. “Bless him,” he said. “Are you eating with me?” He took the fork and stared at it. “You don’t mind sharing a utensil?” His wounds had stopped bleeding, except for his neck, but I could still strongly smell blood.

I liked the smell. He had the scent of wounded quarry.

“Eat,” I told him, sitting on a hay bale. I’d had his blood and it seemed adequate to serve my nutritional needs. Still, I could take more. He’d likely give it to me, too, considering how he’d reacted.

I couldn’t believe how stimulating that had been. I hadn’t _**wanted**_ to touch him, but the act of taking his blood also made me want to take the rest of him. He’d acted like perfect prey, stirring me to a fever pitch in seconds. No struggle, no protests, just easy capitulation and obvious, rampant enjoyment.

Hojo ate with left-handed decorum despite his hunger. He seemed to savor every bite of the food. When finished, he rinsed the plate and sat down on the hay bale I occupied. “That was most appreciated, Valentine, thank you.”

I didn’t know if he meant the food or the sexual attack. By the sly look on his face, he could have meant either. I ignored him and feigned indifference.

“Oh, come off it,” he said. “You brood too much. Things are looking up.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“We’ll be back in Midgar soon. You can check on your friends and I can continue on my cure for X2Geostigma.” Hojo smiled at me. “I think you’ll feel better once you’ve gotten rid of me, anyway. Even without our history, you’d find me abrasive.”

I considered that. I found nearly everyone abrasive. Holding out the flannel shirt, I met his dark eyes. “Billy gave you a shirt.”

“Excellent. I’m getting cold.” Hojo took the soft, thick garment and began putting his arms through it. The nearly flat construction of his hard muscles made the activity slightly distracting, to my displeasure. He’d healed completely while eating, leading me to believe his resilience had a lot to do with his caloric intake.

“Will we be able to reach Midgar in the next two days?” Hojo asked.

“Most likely.” I got up and began wandering the stable. We had a single, empty stall for our own use. As tired as I felt of camping in the open, such meager lodgings looked like a paradise. I came back to the trough and stared at the clean, sparkling water therein. 

I needed to bathe. I smelled like Shin-Ra garbage. The stench offended me.

Hojo made a small noise as I started un-strapping my tunic. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m taking a bath.” I dropped the tunic and bent to remove my boots. “You’ll take one, too, as soon as I’m finished.”

“The water looks cold,” he argued. 

“I’m sure it’s cold.” I knew he was staring at me as I unfastened my pants, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. He’d already seen every part of me. Too, I’d humbled myself by letting blood lust turn into something else.

“Wait just a moment.” Hojo stoppered the free-running spout and jammed the drain with a plastic candy wrapper snatched from the garbage can. He flicked his wrist and sent a fireball into the water, making the water steam instantly. “No sense in not being comfortable,” he said. “Here, I saw some pumice soap in the corner.” He retreated and returned with the item, holding it out to me. “Too bad you can’t wash your hair with it.”

I took the soap and threw it into the trough. Then, I finished undressing and got in. Hojo had already wandered away, respecting my privacy.


	16. Chapter 16

Holy fucking Shiva. Vincent Valentine in a bath. I could no more ignore this than I could ignore a case of chocobo pox.

I sat in the stall we would occupy for sleeping, staring at him through a punched-out knothole in one of the slats. He was beautiful and strong, water running off his bulging muscles and his eyes closed in pleasure. I wanted to go out there and soap him myself.

What a gorgeous creature. He made an animal trough the most royal of bathing accommodations. Being honest with myself, I’d love to roll him all over a bed. He could roll me, too. I’d take that in a heartbeat.

It wasn’t fair for anyone to be so lovely. Even having a hand in his creation didn’t detract from my appreciation. Years had passed since I contributed to his physical makeup, and in that time he’d honed himself into hard, smooth lines, filled out in muscles, and gained a very attractive style. He even walked differently than in his Turk days, with more power and grace.

I sat back and let him finish the rest of his bath in peace. Ten minutes or more later, he came to the stall and sat. Water clung to his clean but slightly matted hair. I took my cue and left for my turn. I really couldn’t wait to get clean. Going for a few days without bathing was one thing, but marinating in filth was quite another.

 

“You danced and whistled around these birds all evening,” I said, barely in control of my temper. “Yet, you now fear getting on one?” We’d stood in the moonlit courtyard for thirty minutes, arguing. Hojo had succumbed to some weird fit of nerves the moment I told him to get on our chocobo. I felt at my wit’s end. We had several more days of travel even with this feathered mount, and he had to put us behind with his craziness.

“I can’t stand not being in control of how fast I go,” he explained. “Plus, I’ll be up so high!”

“Afraid of heights, too?” I asked. “Too bad, Hojo. Get on the fucking chocobo on your own power, or I’ll put you on it myself.”

“Fine.” Hojo touched the bird’s crest. “I need to get on,” he said to it, and I almost laughed at his attempt to communicate. He had a thousand lab animals; why should he have any affinity for any living creature? But, the bird lowered itself completely to the ground. Hojo gingerly mounted, grabbing a handful of feathers and closing his eyes.

I got on behind him, grabbed the reins and started us off on our journey north. Hojo leaned backward, making contact with me. His hands spread out on my thighs and gripped hard. I realized to him I felt more stable than the bird, so I let his trespass slide.

It didn’t take me long to realize I’d have to do more than allow him to brace upon my legs. He shifted exactly the wrong way each time we had to turn. Twice in one hour I nearly lost him due to this. Knowing we’d lose the chocobo if we fell off, I felt like strangling him. He had better balance than this, but he let his fear rule him.

I wound an arm around his waist. “Calm the fuck down,” I commanded, realizing I said this to him at least once a day. “If you won’t trust the bird, trust me.”

Hojo instantly relaxed. His lean body contoured to mine. His head dropped back to my clavicle, and his breathing began to level out. I had his complete faith.

Now that he was clean, he smelled much better. Sandalwood, copper and nervous, fresh sweat wafted to me on every breeze. His flexing ab muscles eventually relaxed like the rest of him, allowing me to turn him with our chocobo. I liked holding him, and that realization made me worry.

I shouldn’t enjoy any of this, any of _him_.

He fell asleep on me halfway through the night. And, so, when I found shelter in a copse of trees and tied the chocobo, he slumbered on. Deciding I could risk a fire, I carried him off the bird, stretched him out on the ground, stole his bracelet and made a very small campfire.

He awoke while I put his bracelet back on his wrist. “Hmm?” he asked sleepily.

“I’m hunting,” I told him. “Wake up and be aware, or you might not be safe.”

Hojo blinked several times, sat up and leaned toward the fire. “All right, Valentine,” he said in a husky voice that sent shivers down my spine. “Be careful.”

He didn’t need to tell me that. A bit miffed, I stalked deeper into the forest. Less than an hour passed before I managed to kill a squirrel with a well aimed rock. I dug some edible, nutritious tubers from a swampy area, washed them, and saw some whistle grass. Finding this funny, I tore great sections of it out. It tasted like spinach and had close to the same nutrients. Using a large mollusk shell, I collected a good bit of water and made my way back to camp.

“Move over,” I told Hojo. “Give me your knife.” He’d added wood to the flames. The heat felt good. I proceeded to skin and clean the squirrel, throwing the guts and head into the fire to avoid drawing animals. I made a spit and shoved it through. “Here, take some water,” I said, giving him the mollusk shell.

Hojo drank the water, and it seemed to perk him up a little. He began munching on the whistle grass, surprising me by stripping the poisonous stems first.

“I thought you weren’t outdoorsy,” I said.

“Whistle grass grows in Wutai, where I come from. It’s a staple.” Hojo started on the tubers next. “Thanks for feeding me.”

“I intend to feed from you,” I said, a little shocked I’d said it out loud and so easily. “It’s only fair I feed you first.”

He chuckled. “Well, good,” he replied. “I always find it nice to see a feral creature doing what’s natural.” He turned his head to me, viewing me through long, dark eyelashes. “I think you can open your bite rather easily; it isn’t healing.”

Suddenly very tempted, I schooled myself to calmness. “After you eat,” I said.

“Whatever you want, pretty Turk,” Hojo said softly.

Damn it. He knew. He knew of my thirst even if he hadn’t been involved with Lucrecia’s projects. “So, I AM a vampire,” I said, controlling my urge to smash something.

“Not a true one,” he said soothingly. “So what if you gain strength and power through blood? Ask yourself how that’s any different from eating meat.” He sat back, thoughtfully chewing the very last of the whistle grass. “I’ll give you what you want with no argument.”

“Of course you will,” I grunted. “It felt good to you.”

“It felt good to us both,” he corrected, straightening his glasses with a slim forefinger. “Why does that bother you? Is my sex so important?”

No, it really wasn’t. I had no objection to finding pleasure with a man; I just had an objection to that man being Hojo. But, I didn’t answer. I dragged the squirrel off the fire and handed him the spit. 

“Thank you.” Hojo made short work of my offering. Once finished, he stretched out in the grass and closed his eyes with a contented sigh. “So good,” he murmured. “Best food I’ve eaten in months, Valentine.”

I eyed the throbbing pulse in his neck. “Because of the assassination attempts?” I asked.

“Yes. Plus, this is fresh, good food you give me. Shin-Ra fare is nigh on to poison, even when it isn’t poisoned.” He began unbuttoning his shirt, his long, white fingers flashing pale and strong. In moments he had it lowered to just below his shoulders. “Only fair I give you what you crave.”

My willpower caved. I was upon him in seconds.

“Oh god,” he groaned as I re-opened his bite holes. “Not an arduous task at all, pretty Turk.”

I lost myself in feeding.


	17. Chapter 17

When I awoke the next evening, our chocobo was gone. Valentine’s red eyes scanned the woods. He began stomping up and down, fuming in silence. Finding him just as beautiful during a temper tantrum, I just sat down to watch.

“Chewed through the tether!” he finally exploded, throwing the rope to the ground. “I should have heard that!”

I couldn’t resist. “With the phenomenal hearing I bestowed upon you?” I asked.

He turned on me, eyes ablaze. “Don’t start with me, Hojo.”

I held up a hand. “I’m just teasing. A poor tease, I’ll admit, but I didn’t mean anything harmful by it.” Getting up, I went over to him. “We can still walk,” I reminded. “It isn’t a lost cause.” 

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “When I get to Aloysius Heideggar and Scarlet Jasen, I’m going to make them pay.”

“Can I watch?” I asked, in all seriousness.

“Do whatever you like,” he grumbled, walking away. “You always do.”

“Not always.” I caught up to him. His long, angry stride made it difficult to stay with him. “Look, we got a lot of traveling done last night. Why are you in such a hurry?”

“This isn’t a vacation!” he swore. “I have a life to return to, and you have work to do. I could transform and fly, if not for the fact I’m babysitting you!”

Ouch.

“Go ahead,” I invited, now getting angry also. “I assure you, I’m able to take care of myself!”

“Like hell you are.” Valentine pushed past a tangled knot of briars and strangle vine, and a briar cracked me in the face. “I’ve never seen anyone so helpless in the great outdoors!”

“Well excuse me for my deficiencies! Who made the raft?” Hah. I had him there.

“The raft wouldn’t have been necessary if you hadn’t dumped us in a pile of garbage!” He threw the words at me.

“If not for me you’d have burned up in an incinerator, or drowned, or found yourself having sex with me until you died!”

“You almost got us electrocuted! Because of you I thought I’d end up in a shark’s belly!” Valentine put his arms in the air and waved them around. “You kidnapped me and put me in the clutches of Shin-Ra! I’ve been drugged, shot, stripped naked, had my boots stolen, submitted to your idea of medicine, targeted, dropped from a helicopter, and, worst of all, had to fend off your groping hands nearly every moment!”

That last comment stung. I’d deliberately tried to avoid touching him. Could I help it if he comforted me? 

“I’ve fed you,” he continued, “I’ve sheltered you, I’ve even clothed you! I think I’ve done very well, especially since I don’t even like you! I think I have the right to be angry our chocobo is gone!” With that, he walked even faster, as if making a real attempt to put distance between us.

I let him. Though he was correct about all his points of contention, I felt highly offended. I hadn’t put him in these positions on purpose. Honestly, I sort of enjoyed this wild tour of the world with him as my guide. Still, he hadn’t asked for the burden of me. I had to give him that.

He didn’t speak to me again, not once. We walked the entire night without stopping. Just as the sun began to change dark to light, he led us into a thick shelter of trees and scrub. Without looking at me, he sat down, put his back to a tree trunk and closed his eyes.

Well, I had to eat. I searched a few minutes until I found an appropriately thick and flexible tree branch. I cut it and shaved the bark, inwardly ranting over the stubbornness of hypocritical Turks. I then gathered wood for a fire, carried it back and piled it. “I’ll be back,” I said, but he didn’t even respond by opening his eyes.

Disgusted, I stalked over the hillside toward the ocean inlet. Let him sulk. I’d already admitted my culpability and could do no more to make it right between us.

I hadn’t speared fish since my boyhood, but I did fairly well. In thirty minutes or less I had two nice fish. I took them back to camp and proceeded to clean them. Valentine watched me. I caught his eye. “Yes, I’m a city boy, but no, I’m not completely helpless. Do you want one?”

“You know what I want,” he answered in an ominous tone.

“Then, let me eat first,” I said firmly, making the equivalent of fish kabobs. “Has it occurred to you that I might know things about vampires that would help you?”

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“All right.” God, he had a prickly attitude. “There are two types of vampires. One kind is born and another is made. Born vampires are bestial, fairly stupid and weak to the sun. They bite humans, and if their blood is transferred in any way, the human becomes a vampire.”

“I’m neither,” he said. “How do I fit in?”

“Lucrecia must have inoculated you with vampiric serums. You’re an unknown variable.”

“Then, you aren’t much good to me for information,” he said, closing his eyes again. 

I handed him a fish kabob. “Eat.”

“I don’t want it.” Valentine carefully avoided my eyes and my offering of food.

I thrust it at him again. “Eat it anyway.”

“Damn you, I don’t want it!” he roared, slapping the kabob from my hand. 

My patience simply snapped. I dropped my own food and dove upon him, rolling him to the ground and straddling his body. Grabbing a handful of his collar, I hauled him up to within an inch of my snarling lips. “You’ll goddamn eat,” I swore, taking pleasure in his astonished expression. “I don’t know fuck-all about what my ex-wife shot into your system, but you’re being deliberately difficult, Valentine.” 

I wrapped a tentacle around his hands and forced them to the ground. These extra appendages were stronger than him, and I’d use them to get my point across. I used another to grab the discarded food, bringing it up to him. “Doesn’t it seem unwise to refuse food when it could be the only thing keeping you from tipping into true vampirism? Go ahead and drink all the blood you want, but eat like a human, you stubborn fuck!”

Valentine stared up at me like he didn’t know who I was. A great tremor ran through him suddenly, and his eyes filled with horror. To my shame, I realized he feared me.

Me.

I’d damaged his mind as well as his body all those years ago. He probably now remembered lying on my table.

Quickly, I got off of him. Affecting a calm I didn’t feel, I picked up my own food and sat. “My apologies,” I murmured. “I was wrong to attack you. You don’t have to eat if you don’t wish it, of course.”

Slowly, carefully, Valentine resumed sitting against the tree trunk. His hand went out, picking up the food. Eyes upon me, he began to eat.


	18. Chapter 18

I’d forgotten Hojo’s strength. How could I forget? He’d subdued me easily after shooting me in the lab so many years ago. The little bastard was stronger than seven able men.

He ate his kabob and collapsed in the thick blanket of pine needles. His hair tie had fallen out at some point, making all that blue-black hair spread out like a fan. Dappled light filtered through the green canopy overhead, the same shade of green I’d seen circling the black of his eyes only a few minutes ago. When truly angry, an electric lime nimbus ringed his black irises.

I’d only seen that halo twice. Once, just before he shot me, and again just now.

He jerked several times with fatigue before completely falling asleep. I’d seen plenty of fellow Turks do that, especially when returning from a long, draining mission. Those little autonomous movements meant great weariness. That didn’t bother me especially. What worried me was how he curled up in a fetal position.

Hojo made a good front most of the time, looking put together and in control, but I knew that façade false. After taking a lot of pressure, he became unhinged. His mind couldn’t take a constant hammering. He could yet become a liability to me out here, though I didn’t see how our argument could have pushed him into this little withdrawal. 

I felt better for having eaten. The bloodlust seemed pushed back a little, in the rear of my concerns instead of the forefront. Maybe Hojo had been correct. Maybe I did have to act human in order to stay human.

For some reason I felt like going over to him. It was like a soft, subtle pulling. I didn’t like it at all. I wanted to stay far away from him, so why did my body feel such a strange draw? I didn’t desire him, didn’t like him, had no use for him.

A butterfly came into our little camp and lit on Hojo’s arm. He felt it. Awakening, he turned his head to look at the colorful insect. Slowly, he sat up and coaxed it onto his finger. Straightening his glasses, he peered at it a long time, black eyes dim with the desire to sleep, but also quite interested. He turned it this way and that, and it stayed still for him, only gently fanning its wings in readiness. “You’re a cactus butterfly,” he murmured. “What are you doing in woodland, and so close to the cold winds of the continent above?”

“It’s just a stupid butterfly,” I said.

Hojo’s eyes sharpened. “Is it?” He looked at me over the tops of his little spectacles, and I got the distinct impression he thought I was the stupid one. “A butterfly is never just a butterfly, Valentine,” he lectured. “These creatures lead short, delicate lives, lives dependent upon a specialized local ecosystem. This little thing shouldn’t be here.”

I heard a rustling in the thick undergrowth. Hojo heard it too. We got up and faced the noise, which grew louder and louder. Hojo moved to stand beside me, shaking his hand and bringing his materia bracelet down farther.

It burst out of the treeline. A cactuar. A very large, very heavy cactuar. Unlike the others I’d seen, it didn’t seem nervy or inclined to run from us.

“Shit,” Hojo said in an almost cheerful voice. “Well, what’s the plan of attack, Mr. Woodsman?”

“You’re such a smart ass,” I muttered, bringing up his gun. I didn’t really want to use it since we had limited ammo.

“It should be weak against water,” Hojo mused.

The cactuar seemed to swell. I knew that sign. “Get down!” Lowering the gun, I grabbed Hojo and shoved him to the ground, covering him. “It attacks with-.”

I didn’t get to finish. I roared in pain as thousands of needles pierced my body. Each one made a burning hot puncture. I felt instant anger, which turned into mindless rage as another volley of needles embedded into me. Molten darkness stirred in my soul, pushing the human back and the demons forth.

I never know what I do when in a beast form. Everything becomes a haze of fury and the desire to hurt anything in front of me. My vision becomes reddened and I hurt down to my bones and veins. So, I wasn’t surprised to suddenly be sitting in a soft carpet of ground pine, disoriented, with Hojo picking needles out of my skin.

“Well, you got him,” he said, a wry smile twisting his mouth. “I’m impressed. I’ve never seen a cactus monster explode before.” He yanked out a barb, adding it to a pile nearly three inches high. “What happens to your clothing when you transform? It should get ripped to shreds.”

I shrugged, but the motion brought so much pain I pulled it short. Hojo took my hand, forcing my arm straight gently. “Try to be still. The creature’s needles have venom sacks. If you weren’t wearing solid leather from head to foot, you’d be in poisoned bloody tatters right now.”

I closed my eyes. Hojo kept talking, but for once I didn’t mind. His low, dark voice became a focus, allowing me to distance myself from the painful ordeal of needle removal.

“I have to say, your beast form is formidable,” he said. “You sprout wings, gain about a hundred pounds of muscle and another foot of height. You took the cactus thing out with one hit.”

“Cactuar,” I informed. “It’s called a cactuar.” I’d turned directly into Chaos? I usually became Galian Beast first, or so my friends had reported.

“It’s more demonic than that animal you turned into,” Hojo said, sounding disgusted. “I’m very grateful you didn’t let it rip me apart. Thank you.”

I had no idea why I’d been moved to protect him like that, so I didn’t say anything.

“I’m pretty certain cotton pants and a flannel shirt wouldn’t have protected me much,” he prattled on. 

“Please don’t make me into a hero,” I said, feeling tired and sick. “I’m no more a hero than you are.” I didn’t have the energy for this discussion. “I really don’t want your gratitude.”

“Tough shit.” Hojo got up and went to my back, where the majority of the needles hit. “This is going to take awhile, Valentine,” he said, sighing.

“I’m sure.” I closed my eyes again.

He plucked the horrible little barbs from me for nearly two hours. I pulsed all over with pain. The smell of bloody venom made my stomach churn. At least Hojo progressed with swift, gentle efficiency. He had a deft hand for this sort of thing.

“The venom shouldn’t cause you too much concern,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m finished. Can you feel any more needles I might have missed?”

“No.” I got on my stomach and rested my head on my folded arms. This brought me level with the needle pile. I stared hatefully at it. At least I’d killed the wretched cactuar. I vowed I’d kill any that came across my path, hunt them even.

Hojo left me for a little while. I couldn’t sleep for pain, but I did drift a bit. When he came back, he squatted beside me. “Can you get your top off?”

Slowly, I sat up and complied. Rolling up the pin-pricked leather, I put it down so I could use it for a pillow. Something wet and cold and wonderful touched my inflamed skin. “Halvana leaves,” Hojo told me quietly. “Not as good as aloe, but surely of some relief.”

Relief didn’t come close to describing it, not at all. It was like a cool blanket smothering flames. I relaxed almost instantly, dropping back to the ground. Hojo carefully applied more and more of the blessed, heat-drawing leaves. I groaned long and low, almost orgasmic in my bliss.

“You should be healed up by nightfall,” Hojo assured. He patted the top of my head in a startling version of doctor-bedside-manner kindness. “I have more leaves, so just wake me up if the ones already on your back start losing their effect.”

I’d indeed do that. Oh yes.


	19. Chapter 19

The poor creature.

I stared at his slightly shivering form, feeling an unaccustomed pity. He’d protected me, and look where it got him. Full of holes. I knew they hurt. Thankfully, the halvana leaves would bring out some of that agonizing heat.

I felt very impressed over his transformation. What a beast. Gigantic, hulking, yet graceful and fast. Deadly. Him, but _**not**_ him; a mix of Valentine and a monster. And what a glorious, powerful combination. Valentine had control of himself strictly, even though he obviously couldn’t remember what he’d done.

_The beast with black-rimmed, red bat’s wings turned to face me, taloned hands dripping cactus gore. Valentine’s angelic face framed inside horned protrusions. Feathers, matted hair, massively long and extended blood teeth…_

_He threw back his head and howled, shaking every tree for miles around. Slowly, he stepped toward me, eyes shining like orange xenon lamps._

_“Good,” I said, holding up my hands. “Good, Vincent. You killed it.”_

_He blinked in confusion. I saw him beginning to evaluate me. Threat or not? Friend or foe? Undecided, he continued to advance. I stopped dead and let him tower atop me._

_He grabbed me. His claws dug into my arms. With the slightest effort, he lifted me to look him in the eyes. I gave him all the eye contact he wanted, yet didn’t challenge him. I remained still as he sniffed my head. He must have found me non-threatening, for he put me down with rather more gentleness than he’d picked me up._

_Attention drawn to the thousands of barbs in his chest and arms, he made a slight sound. Incredibly, he admitted to pain. It thrilled me that he would. It meant the demon didn’t have utter control over the Turk._

_He attempted to claw the needles out in handfuls, but the effort wounded him. He hissed._

_“Let me,” I said, reaching. “They’ll hurt, but they need to come out.”_

_He sat down stiffly, panting. Because I couldn’t reach the ones in his chest without getting very close, I sat in his lap very carefully. He let me settle, glowing eyes fixed upon me with curiosity and dumb animal concern. I couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking._

_One by one, I removed cactus needles. He seemed able to endure the pain if I went slowly. I feared enraging him. Eventually, he began to shrink to his human form. The pile of barbed needles stood three inches high before he reverted completely to his original form…_

So, even though he obviously didn’t remember the first part of my efforts, he’d been fully cognizant of the latter. His prime demon trusted me, though, enough to let me sit in his lap and pick out painful spikes. I felt honored. I had an instinct no one had ever touched him in that form.

Valentine shuddered. I got up and removed the warm, damp leaves from his back, replacing them with new ones. He sighed, relaxed, and went limp again.

I’d decided during our adventure that I wouldn’t mind at all if he fucked me. Now, I really, really wanted him to. I wanted all that power and potential deadly force focused on me. He could have me as his beast, even, if he wanted. Now THAT idea made me shiver. I liked it rough. I doubted I could get rougher treatment. Still, one never knew. Valentine had finesse. No reason to think he would lose it while wearing the skin of a monster.

“Hojo,” he said softly, that dark rasp of a voice coasting all over me like a caress.

I crouched beside him. “What do you need?” I asked.

“Water.” He turned his head, looking at me with painful intensity.

“I’ll find some,” I promised. His system probably tried to burn off any leftover venom. No wonder he felt thirsty. 

I first went back to the seashore, where I found a coconut tree. Knocking a few nuts down, I hulled one and smashed the hard inner hull against a rock. I drank the milk, then used my knife to crack the pieces into imperfect halves. Carrying two intact coconuts and the pieces of the other, I walked back to him.

“Try this first,” I said, opening another so he could drink from it. He sat up and went about ingesting the coconut milk, his speed betraying his thirst. I opened the other, let him drink from it, then took the other pieces. “I’ll find real water,” I told him. “Just relax.”

Again I left him. After following my nose for ten minutes I found a small, non-stagnant pool among a small grouping of trees. I filled the coconut halves and returned after drinking a great deal directly from the pool myself. Upon my return, he fell upon my water offerings like a man dying in the desert. I ate coconut while he quenched his unnatural thirst, breaking up some of it for him.

Valentine sat and quietly ate every piece of the nut I handed over, his strong teeth making short work of it all. When finished, he stretched back out. I changed his leaves again and sat beside him. I’d watch him until he found himself fit to move on.

I owed him that much, at least.


	20. Chapter 20

I awoke feeling good. Slowly, I sat up and clapped eyes upon a very awake and alert Hojo. He smiled at me. “Feel better?” he asked.

I nodded. Hojo peeled damp leaves from my back. I put on my leather top and just sat for a moment. It surprised me when Hojo’s hand appeared under my vision, filled with coconut pieces. “Eat some more,” he bade. “I’ve got fish baking in our coals. We can delay departure for thirty minutes, yes?”

“Yes,” I affirmed. He wasn’t a total loss outdoors, it seemed. I’d never managed to successfully spear fish.

We ate, and he offered me cold, clear water, which I gladly drank. I felt better this morning than I had in a long time, possibly because I hadn’t eaten with any regularity since two weeks before he even captured me.

My eyes wandered to him. He needed to shave, badly. In another day or two he’d have a real beard. Already he had the goatee and mustache I remembered him sporting during my Turk days. Dark, thick stubble decorated his jaws, stopping very neatly just underneath. A lot of men grew facial hair on their neck, but not him.

I regretted not growing facial hair. I’d never found a style I liked, but shaving was one of those things I missed. It made me feel like a man.

“So, continue northwest and then drop down to Midgar?” he asked. “Did you know there’s a real road from the port? It stretches down to Edge, nearly.”

“I have no better plan,” I admitted. “Yes, I know about the port and the road. From there one can catch a ship to Bone Village. I recall a small settlement on the port.”

“I haven’t been there in many years, but I do remember a little town at the top of the continent.” Hojo stood and kicked our fire apart, then scooped earth with discarded coconut shells to completely smother the coals. “I’m just glad we don’t have to actually go to Bone Village. A more miserable place never existed. I thought I’d never get warm again.” He paused, sliding me a careful look. “You do know that’s where Gast and I dug up Jenova?”

“No, I didn’t know.” It made sense. I knew Jenova had been dug from newly melting ice, and Bone Village wasn’t as cold as it used to be, to trust the reports.

“Well, I suppose the information was classified, though I never ordered such.” Hojo sighed. “So much went on that I never knew about; Gast was my supervisor, and uninspired to grant me his little bits of information.” Both his hands briefly clenched into fists. “I’d love to eliminate that bastard’s benevolent reputation. He was every bit as bad as me, but people forgave him for it because of his charisma and winning smile, the prick.” Hojo stalked away to stand at the edge of our camp, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched. “God, I hated him. It felt so GOOD to shoot him.”

“I thought he was a fairly good scientist,” I said, standing and dusting off my clothing.

“Did you ever meet him?” Hojo whirled upon me and began a hostile advance. “Did you ever speak two words to the man?”

“No,” I admitted. “But, his daughter, Aerith, was a very good woman.”

“She surpassed him in nearly every way,” Hojo said. “Let me tell you, Valentine, that her father was a son of a bitch. He led the Jenova Project, but he failed to lead in any other way, do you get my meaning?”

I stood stunned as Hojo began an agitated pacing before me, his head down and his hands behind his back. I hadn’t seen him in such a pose in years.

“We agreed,” he said, looking hateful and maddened. “I would use Lucrecia for the Jenova Project, and he would use Ifalna. But, in the end, he had second thoughts. He let me ruin my wife for the cause while he protected his own!” Hojo stopped to throw his hands in the air. “He cut and ran, Valentine! He didn’t even tell his pretty little wife what he intended for the project! He just took her and his five year old daughter, secreting them far away from Shin-Ra!”

I could say nothing. I felt too stunned by the information to respond. But, it didn’t matter. Hojo continued to pace and mutter and spew the hatred of the past without pause.

“Ifalna knew what we were doing! She agreed! But, she wanted us to overcome Jenova, not use her in genetic experiments! She always knew what Jenova was, but she didn’t tell us!” Hojo spun in place and punched a pine tree. “She couldn’t take the tug of war, and she ran.” He grabbed the trunk of that same tree and held on as if it were a lifeline. “She went where her husband told her to run, and when I came, she shrank back in the shadows and let me kill him! She didn’t give a flying fuck what I did to him as long as she could keep her precious daughter! Well, I didn’t separate them, did I?”

“Hojo,” I interrupted. “Stop. This isn’t doing any good!”

“I know it isn’t!” He shouted. “Valentine, I know!”

“Then stop it!” I demanded, coming forward and grabbing him. “All this is in the past. You can’t do anything about it!”

He wrestled with me a few moments, unwilling to give in yet not entirely committed to a fight. Finally, he sank down to the ground and stared at the thick bed of peat, his black eyes dim and faraway. “I’ve killed them all, Valentine,” he said softly. “That sweet little Ancient that used to be Ifalna’s daughter; she’s forgiven me. But it does nothing to stop how I feel.”

“How do you know she’s forgiven you?” I asked, swallowing hard. Cloud said Aerith spoke to him sometimes. Maybe she spoke to Hojo, too.

“She told me.” Hojo got up and dusted himself off. “You’re right. I can’t do anything about the past.”

I nodded slowly. With Hojo, it was possible he only imagined Aerith’s forgiveness. However, I could easily see Aerith offering Hojo her forgiveness, if he merited it.

We started walking again. Shiva, I was tired of this.

At two hours to dawn, we hit a hard packed dirt road, which I imagined as a tributary to the main one we desired. Not a half hour later I heard the sound of an engine. “Should we brazen it out?” Hojo asked as the vehicle drew closer.

“Yes.” I felt in a mood to utterly shred anyone who wanted to fuck with us. 

We moved to the edge and stood, waiting for the vehicle to pass. I tensed when it stopped. Turning, I spied a civilian all-terrain utility truck with two young, black-haired women inside. One of them stood up, grinning. She fired off a question at us in a language I’d heard before but didn’t know. I looked to Hojo, who was also grinning widely. He approached the truck.

I listened to a rapid, musical conversation, which, though short, ended up with Hojo bending over double to laugh. He came back to me, eyes full of devilish humor. “There’s some sort of rainbow festival at the port,” he explained. “They think we’re attending, and they’ve offered to give us a ride if we’ll kiss each other for them.”

“A festival for gays?” I asked, not put off, but not in a mood to lip-lock with crazy Hojo.

Hojo nodded solemnly. “We only have a bit of walking left,” he offered, obviously not expecting me to comply with the women’s vulgar wishes. 

I felt tempted. Sorely tempted. I’d had enough of walking. All I had to do was kiss this science freak and we could ride the last few miles.

Hojo’s black gaze wandered my face, settled on my lips a moment, then traveled back to my eyes. “You’re actually thinking about it,” he murmured, sounding awed.

One of the women honked the horn, then they both giggled.

“It’s up to you,” he went on softly. “I’ll warn you, though, Valentine. For me, it won’t be a fake kiss just to get a ride. I’ll devour your lips. I’ll suck on your tongue and make you think about what else I can suck with skill.”

I couldn’t help shivering. His low voice radiated confidence and desire.

I’d do it. 

I grabbed him. Bending him backward, I put our lips together.

_**Holy fuck**_. Hojo hadn’t been bluffing. He drew me in like a pro, applying lips, teeth and tongue with blistering talent. I gasped into his mouth, feeling my entire body winding up with lust.

It was like I couldn’t help myself. I shoved him down onto the hood of the truck, only dimly aware of the delighted hoots and cheers of the two women. I filled with the need to just take him, and I deepened our kiss in helpless need. My cock swelled and my body began to shake.

Hojo bit my lip. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it brought me back to myself. I pulled away from him a little, still reeling, and looked into his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sure they’d happily settle in with popcorn, but that isn’t why you kissed me. You want a ride. That’s the only reason I snapped you out of some very lovely lust.”

I stood straight and looked at the driver, who grinned cheerily and spoke in her lilting tongue.

“She says that was worth a hundred miles,” Hojo reported, sliding off the truck hood. “I disagree. It was worth the entire, miserable journey so far.” He climbed into the back, and, after a moment, I followed.

I still didn’t know what had happened.


	21. Chapter 21

Great Gaia. If I didn’t get his wonderful taste out of my mouth, I’d go crazy. No, crazier. I snuck a glance at him. Of course, he brooded. He sat there, staring out into the dark with statue-like stillness. I’d rocked his world. It gave me satisfaction, of course, but not like I thought it would. Now I knew I’d be consumed by the desire for more of him.

I loved his assault. I loved knowing I could get sexual aggression out of him in the first place.

We drove into town, which was lit up with lights and torches. Banners of rainbow colors hung everywhere. I worried we wouldn’t get a room at an inn with such a large festival attendance.

Valentine hopped down gracefully. I followed after thanking the two women for their ride. They laughed, offered me money if I could get my boyfriend to kiss me again. Though it hurt, I turned them down. If I pushed Valentine’s buttons too hard, he’d retreat from me. I didn’t want that. Right now I had to play it smart and be a good little uke.

One of the women gave me gil anyway, telling me she thought we deserved it.

We wordlessly identified and headed for an inn. Once inside, Valentine went straight to the counter. I followed. “Do you have any rooms left?” he asked.

“Only one,” the stressed looking clerk said. “We never rent that room.”

“Why?” I asked, curious.

“It’s haunted.” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”

“We’ll take it,” I said, sliding her the gil I’d only just made.

“I can’t let you take it,” she said, her worried green eyes moving to her supervisor, who only stood a few feet away. “Seriously. Anyone who stays in there is dead by morning.”

“It’s already morning,” Valentine said, thumping his gauntlet onto the counter. “Give it to us.”

She looked at him. “We-elll.”

“Give it to them, Margery,” her supervisor snapped. “Make them sign a paper that we aren’t held accountable for a haunting death and get rid of them. We have to get food out on the complimentary tables.”

My stomach rumbled. “Food?”

“All guests eat a free breakfast while the festival is in town,” the clerk said. She drew up a paper and handed it over to us.

**We, the undersigned, do not hold Second Chances Inn responsible for death or dismemberment upon staying in basement room number one. Our survivors will not sue this establishment, nor slander it, and we understand that Second Chances Inn will not pay for our burial.**

We signed, but I smiled when I saw we both used fake names. We hadn’t even discussed that.

“Eat with me,” I bade, jerking my head toward the rapidly filling tables. “I doubt anyone hits on me with you hovering close by.”

He gave me a strange look that I couldn’t decipher, but he acquiesced without a word. I took a plate and loaded it down with scrambled eggs, bacon, fried mushrooms, and hash browns. Smothering everything in gravy, I happily sat beside Valentine and began eating.

Valentine quietly ate a single peach before saying anything. He dropped his pit onto my plate. “You don’t want any of these men to make advances upon you?”

I glanced around. Some of them were very fine, but none held a candle to Valentine. “No.” I discarded my plate and got another, filling it up exactly the same way.

“Why not?” he asked.

I frowned. Why did he want conversation now? I had better things to do with my mouth than talk. “I’m too busy to entertain any of these men,” I told him. “I can tell just by looking at them that they all require keeping.”

“Keeping,” Valentine repeated. He got up and took a bunch of grapes, then returned to me. “How can you tell by looking at them?”

I realized he had something cooking in that pretty head, and he wouldn’t drop it until he got the answers he sought. This forced me to slow in my eating. It wasn’t like I tasted anything in the first place, I admitted to myself. I only attempted to fill the gigantic hole in my gut.

“I just can,” I said. “Have you been out of the game that long?”

“Game?” He frowned. “Love and sex aren’t games.” Shifting a little, he met the stare of a blond man head-on. “That one has been looking at me for far too long.”

“He’s looking for a boyfriend. Your eye contact is encouraging,” I explained, smiling when Valentine quickly turned to face me. “If you want to put him off, make some sort of ownership signal towards me. You can be subtle.”

His red eyes darkened just a little. “Like what?”

“Take something off my plate,” I suggested.

He examined my plate, snatched a piece of bacon and stuffed it into his mouth. “It seems to have worked,” he murmured.

I nodded. “I’ll take it a step farther.” I got up and filled a plate with toast and sausage, then handed it to him with a fork. Meeting the eyes of my brooding homophobe, I grinned. “Juice or milk?”

“…milk.” Valentine didn’t return my smile.

He ate almost as fast as I did. Taking our room key, he got up. “I need real sleep.”

“I do, too,” I admitted easily, following. I didn’t know how he knew where we needed to go, but he led us well. We stood outside Number One in the basement in just a minute. He didn’t hesitate, but shoved the key in and opened the door.

I beheld a room so dark and moldy smelling that the Shin-Ra mansion would have recoiled from it in fear. Valentine strode inside, impatiently waved me in, then slammed and locked the door behind me. I stood in the exact center, or, what I guessed as the exact center of the room. I feared to touch _anything_.

Valentine made a noise of impatience, striding to me. He grabbed my wrist, yanked off the materia bracelet, then promptly sent a gale of wind through our room. It collected like a twister, forcing me to press myself to a damp, lichen-encrusted wall to avoid being sucked in.

Going back to the door, Valentine threw it wide and directed the wind out. We now occupied a room that only smelled of water, not spores and brackishness. “It’s still dirty,” he proclaimed in disgust, throwing my bracelet back. “Stay here. I’ll return shortly.” He strode out.

I’d never really paid any attention to the supernatural. I heeded science more than superstition. Still, I heeded the creepy, breathless whispering that began the very second Valentine vacated the room.

“…not one of usssss…..”

“…alive…warm…bloooood…”

“…we drink himmmm…”

I saw a movement out of my peripheral vision, and whirled to face it. Of course, it vanished the second I fully turned.

Oh, _**fuck**_ no. I wasn’t staying in here.

I strode to the door and yanked on the knob. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. I rattled it, too scared to absorb that I was truly trapped. It would open. I’d _**make**_ it open.

Valentine burst through, his arms full of bed linens. Paying me no mind, he strode in and started stripping the large bed. The hideous gibbering from unseen entities stopped the moment he entered. “Haunted or not, they should keep the place clean,” he complained bitterly, fussing with the bed like an old woman. “Help me. Grab the other side of this.”

I complied; casting nervous looks this way and that as I attempted to put my side of the mattress cover to rights. 

“There’s no sense in letting a dark, quiet room like this become a filthy hole,” Valentine continued complaining. He began putting the bottom sheet on, his movements brisk and irritated. I helped him from my side, swallowing back an acrid taste in my throat. We placed the flat sheet, then the comforter. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Pillows.” He went for the door again.

I stood frozen as he disappeared. He left the door open, but the very fucking moment he vanished up the stairwell, it slammed shut.

“…soooo warm, so tasty-eeee…”

“…afraid…shouldn’t be afraid…come, join ussss….”

“…love you…love your blood and skin and bones…”

I flew to the door and started yanking on the knob again, frantic and nearly mindless. I couldn’t stand the unknown, and I certainly had no desire to start embracing it with the life of a blood-sucking ghoul.

The shadows drew closer, and I only knew them as shadows because my mind saw them. My eyes couldn’t see them at all.

“…noooo…don’t run, tasty mannn…”

“…sssstayyy and love usss…”

“…break your bones and suck your marrow, eat youuu…”

Holy fucking Shiva! I ripped the knob right off, but the door still didn’t open. I could see through the hole, though, and Valentine’s shadow moving down the stairs. “You goddamn hurry, Turk!” I shouted through that hole. Something was touching me, now, on my shoulder, a slender tendril of ice and dread…

Valentine opened the door, once again making the ghostly, violent entities retreat. He scowled at me. “What’s your fucking problem?” he asked, walking by me and putting pillows on the bed.

“There’s something, some _things_ in here,” I whispered. I could feel them hanging against the walls, waiting.

Valentine looked around. “Where?”

And then, I understood.

Whatever demonic forces lurked in Vincent Valentine, they could _**eat**_ the things in this room. The _things_ were _**afraid**_ of him. They wouldn’t come near him.

Somewhat assured, I sat on the edge of the now very clean bed. “Everywhere,” I answered. “They’re all around us. But, they’re scared of you.”

“They _**should**_ be,” Valentine growled. He flexed his metallic hand, making his claws click together. “Get in the bed, madman. Even when _**I**_ sleep, Chaos _**never**_ does.”

His warning pushed the unseen malevolence even further back. I kicked off my shoes, got under the covers and lit a cigarette from my mangled pack. For a single gil I’d go out and throw myself under an angry chocobo. I couldn’t handle this supernatural shit.

Valentine shed his boots and his shirt, climbed into the bed and fluffed his pillow. “Give me one of those,” he demanded.


	22. Chapter 22

Hojo handed me a cigarette with slightly shaking fingers. He didn’t even look at me, just passed me his materia bracelet so I could light the smoke. I lit it, gave the bracelet back and took a savory inhale.

He was scared. I could smell it. Funny thing was, I’d never smelled fear on him, not real fear. This, however, was different. He sensed things in here I couldn’t feel. I believed him simply because of his terror. It radiated from him like cold heat, like burning nitrogen.

I accessed Chaos. _What_? I asked him.

_Malicious, blood-sucking ghouls_ , the demon replied. _They want the scientist, badly. Stay close unless you wish him lost. I’ll watch when you sleep._

I acknowledged him and cut communication. “Hojo,” I said aloud. “Where are they now?”

Hojo didn’t even pause. “At every wall,” he answered lowly. “I think there’s at least five of them.” His voice shook.

I felt pity for his sake. Maybe it was just the kindness he’d given me during that time I recovered from the cactuar attack, but something prompted me to extend myself for his benefit. I threw my half-smoked cigarette against the stone wall and pulled the covers up closer. “To me,” I commanded.

Hojo abandoned his smoke and pressed himself to my body in a mere three seconds. He tucked his face against my neck, wrapped his arms under and over my waist and twined his left leg over my right hip, shuddering. “Oh, god,” he whispered. “Thank you, Vincent.” He’d used my name, and not for being a smartass. 

He was really, really terrified. I couldn’t comprehend his dread. He shivered and trembled against me like a quaking aspen tree in the wind. He didn’t sob or cry, just manifested his horror in involuntary shakes and muscle spasms.

“Not much experience with the spectral?” I asked quietly. 

“No.” Hojo pressed his lips against the flesh of my neck, right where throat met clavicle bone. The sensation of his voice as it coasted over fine hairs and sensitive skin, made me shiver, too. His grip on my waist tightened. “If they’d just be quiet,” he said. 

I summoned up some anger, feeling it stir my inner demons. “Silence,” I commanded the unseen inhabitants of our room. 

Hojo inhaled sharply, then let the breath out with a whoosh. “Thank Da-chao,” he sighed. “I think I can bear it now.” 

I thought about pushing a transformation just to eliminate the threat. Chaos liked the idea, too. But, I felt him weigh that option and discard it. It seemed he liked the way Hojo felt in my arms. Surprised, I sought him again, but he didn’t answer me.

Perhaps even ancient demons could miss gentle contact with another?

I’d known of stranger things.

Hojo’s rapidly beating heart gradually began to slow, but I still felt it strongly against my chest. The pulses of terror he emitted began to slow as well, replaced by strong contentment, relief and gratitude towards me. I’d never felt so many emotions from him, and never this strongly. Usually, I caught fleeting impressions, just snips of his feelings.

I had to admit it, since my only witnesses dwelt within me and I couldn’t lie to them anyway, Hojo _**did**_ feel good in my arms. Not like a woman. Solid. Hard, but smaller than me, which satisfied the alpha that lurked in my ego. Even as I thought that, he started his shivering again. I put my hand on top of his head. “Are you cold?”

“Not on the outside,” he answered, his lips moving against my neck. “Our heat and the blankets seem sufficient.”

Ah. Cold on the inside, then, and because of the things he could feel watching us. 

“They won’t get you,” I promised, stroking his slick hair just once. “Sleep, Hojo.”

He shivered once more, then obeyed me.


	23. Chapter 23

He felt so good. I almost couldn’t comprehend it. Years upon years of fending for myself, sometimes doing a good job of it and sometimes not, had left me balanced between shredded nerves and apathetic numbness. Valentine made all that go away. He soothed me, pushed the fear back while bringing real feeling to my starved synapses.

Oh, his scent! Darkness, rich soil, gunpowder, blood, rain and musk. The ultimate man. So hot, so strong, so dominant. His arms kept the nightmarish ghouls away.

I felt his claws tapping against my shoulder in a thoughtful rhythm. He wasn’t alerting me to anything, just thinking. Quietly, patiently, he remained awake and aware of our surroundings even though he’d confessed the need for sleep. I’d teased him for his gallantry, but right now I relied upon it enough to make me ashamed of goading him. Without his unusual chivalry, I’d be a mess, or dead.

How did a Turk acquire such courtly valor? It had to have always been a part of him, part of his nature. He probably smothered it for the sake of being a Turk, but once that duty ended, he returned to it. It remained so much a part of his makeup that he’d suppressed a nearly overpowering desire to kill me, favoring the elimination of X2Geostigma over fulfilling a desire for revenge. He was noble despite his past, charitable despite having received nothing for his generosity.

He shamed me.

I deserved that. I deserved having my flaws shoved into the forefront for a thorough examination. I’d wronged him repeatedly, and then been clueless as to why he carried a grudge. Amazing that he could do so much for me now…

“You aren’t sleeping,” he accused in his soft, baritone drawl.

I pushed up from the bottom of my head. “I don’t need full sleep to function, just to have my body at rest,” I explained. His hand in my hair distracted me. I doubted he even knew his own fingers danced along my scalp like that. If he did, he’d stop.

“You’re limp,” he said, demonstrating by lifting my arm and letting it drop. “Is it so easy for you to distance your brain from your body?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Except for my lips. They have to move for communication.”

“You couldn’t stop your mouth for worlds,” he replied.

I had to smile. He was right.

I drifted again, caught in a sweet mix of pleasure and anxiety. The things in the room were moving closer, perhaps emboldened by our stillness. But, Valentine’s strength and vigilance assured me. I was safe.

Because of that feeling, I remained limp even when I felt him transforming under me. I found myself rolled gently to the sheets, and him moving upright.

The cries of ghostly agony, Valentine’s primeval growling, and my own heartbeat combined into an unearthly music. I heard him splattering ectoplasm, the satisfying noises of ghouls bursting against stone walls. Then, in the awesome quiet, large, clawed hands lifted me. The bed groaned as he settled back onto the mattress. He settled me back onto his massive form. A great, leathery wing curled over my back.

I slept fully, earnestly, and heavily, the strong, steady heartbeat of a beautiful monster resounding in my ears and against my chest.


	24. Chapter 24

“You don’t have a ghost problem anymore,” Valentine said coldly to the inn owner. He’d by-passed Margery, the clerk, and spoke to the head man himself, insisting he needed to do this before we left this evening. “For my service of pest extermination, I demand you let my companion eat a decent meal and that you give him a coat.”

The innkeeper stared at him. “You…killed…the ghosts?” he asked, clearly disbelieving. “But, how?”

Valentine bared his teeth, and even I, who knew what those fangs could do, shuddered in eerie appreciation. “Just go and check,” he said lowly. “You’ll find the evidence all over those moldy walls.”

The innkeeper hurried away, though he displayed clear reluctance to go below to the basement. I leaned in toward Valentine. “Thanks,” I said.

“It’s no issue,” he deflected. “The least they can do is fill your belly and give you a decent cover from the cold. That room did them no good, after all.” He tossed his head, sending tendrils of blue-black hair cascading over his shoulders. “I should demand the night’s rental gil, too.” He looked down at me. “Where _**did**_ you get that money?”

“Those Wutainese women gave it to me for the kiss,” I explained. “Well, one of them, anyway.”

A very slight smile moved Valentine’s lips. He resumed staring straight ahead, but his humor rolled off of him in waves.

I had to grin. His humor was infectious. And, appreciated, too. 

The innkeeper came back, breathless and with awe in his brown eyes. “You _**did**_ kill them,” he said. “Yes, I’ll give you both a good supper, and a coat.” He turned and began snapping orders to his second, the much put-upon Margery. In a few minutes we sat at a table in the main room, a slew of platters before us.

I grabbed a soup tureen and served myself, hungry and eager to fill that gnawing hole in my belly. Jenova cells made it impossible to ever just ignore a meal. I forever battled famine.

Valentine started on a loaf of five-grain bread, liberally spreading savory, salted butter upon every slice he cut. We ate for nearly a half hour before slowing, battling over platters and finally just sharing a glass of milk that we refilled from a pitcher. Satiated and almost sluggish from eating, we staggered out into the night. I had a good, thick leather trench coat, too.

“You look better,” Valentine announced, gazing upon me with interest. “But, you seem a little…green.”

“My natural olive coloring and Jenova’s cells,” I explained, belting my second-hand but much appreciated coat. “Alien though she was, she did enjoy the proper caloric intake. I had to feed her mutilated corpse a steady carbohydrate diet while she floated in her tank.” I paused to look in a puddle, trying to see my reflection. “Do I look _really_ green?” 

“No,” he said after a moment. “Just…foreign, like someone from Wutai. If that’s truly your country of origin, I imagine you look natural.”

“Good. A really green tint means I’m trying to mutate into one of her forms.” I secured my right bootlace, wishing I’d been able to find a new pair of socks. Much longer with these against my skin and my skin would rot. I’d attempt to wash those things out if we neared a body of water in the morning.

We walked an hour before Valentine attempted conversation. “You mentioned she tried to kill you,” he said, referring to Jenova. “How?”

I shuddered, remembering that day. “Tried to drown me,” I revealed. “She pulled me into her tank. I escaped, but only after she ripped a goodly amount of hide from my body. Bitch.”

Surprisingly, he chuckled. “That wasn’t your clue to stop?”

“Stop?” I laughed, too. “Valentine, she represented arcane knowledge, dreams, hopes and the betterment of our world. I wouldn’t have stopped unless I was dead.” Sobering, I paused to reflect upon that time. “I didn’t know she’d infect our world like cancer. If I had, I truly can’t say I wouldn’t have been frightened enough to quit. It was only after I saw what her disease brought Gaia that I realized her truest menace.”

After a long ten minutes, Valentine nodded. “You’re actually quite mad, aren’t you, Hojo?” He stopped to look at me, his red, red eyes so intent and powerful I could only stare like a rabbit caught in automobile headlights. “You’re so mad you’re almost, _**almost**_ unaccountable for what you do.”

Unaccountable? No, not nearly. Unrepentant? That was something else entirely.

“I’m a disease, like Jenova,” I answered, walking again. “That’s why I host her so very well, Vincent. I’ve never been human and I probably won’t ever be.” I gave into fit of giggling. “We aren’t so very different, Turk,” I said. “I host alien consciousness and you host demons. Funny thing is, we both do so only because of the same woman.”

“What?” Valentine stopped walking, forcing me to stop as well. “Explain,” he demanded.

“Well,” I replied, gathering my thoughts. “I took Lucrecia on the Jenova Project a mere month after Gast and I unearthed her; she encouraged me to explore and discover the alien by any means necessary for scientific discovery.” I smiled as I remembered Lucrecia’s enthusiasm. God, she was such a _**good**_ scientist. “You took demons into your body in the effort to please her, didn’t you? We both capitulated to that sweet voice and convincing argument.”

Valentine blanched to the color of fresh paper. He stopped dead on the road, staring down at the packed mud and breathing hard. “We…both…” he said after a moment, clutching at his heart. “ _ **Fuck**_ , Hojo…” 

“Oh, get over it,” I advised. “She was worth it, wasn’t she?” I put a hand up and wiped nervous sweat from his brow. “A better woman never walked the planet.” I dragged his sweat off on my pant leg, watching him carefully. “Lucrecia was brilliant, a sexy, complete woman. She nurtured the best and worst we could offer. We deserve what happened to us, don’t we? She even told us what could and would happen, and, like the smitten fools we were, we just accepted what she offered.”

Valentine collapsed upon the road, and, on his knees, began to retch. Stunned, I knelt beside him and gathered up his long hair so he wouldn’t puke in it. “You all right?” I asked.

“I…no,” he said after a long moment. He gagged, throwing up a blood-tinged wad of his meal. Spitting, he braced himself in the dirt with his golden gauntlet. “She… led…me?”

I frowned. Was he so dull? Standing back, I looked upon his curved, strong frame, his beaten and curled shoulders. He puked in earnest now, throwing up every last bit of food he’d eaten in the port inn.

Oh, holy fucking Shiva.

He’d acted all these years while of a mind that my wife _loved_ him.

The nobility of his spirit came crashing down, illuminating his actions and words. Vincent Valentine, decent, righteous, moralistic and proud, he’d done all he’d done because he believed in true love. My wife had ruined him more completely than anyone or anything could have ever accomplished.

Without meaning to, she’d crushed him absolutely.

Of a sudden, I understood it all. I comprehended his venom toward me, his hatred, his pure and true desire to see me dead and buried. I grasped the manner she’d played us against one another. Lucrecia had pitted us in such a way that Valentine had no choice but to hate me, eliminate me. But, I’d scored first by shooting him. He now labored between his instinctive desire to eliminate a rival and his intrinsic insistence for justice.

Holy fuck, what a dilemma.

I truly, entirely pitied him.

“Vincent,” I said after a long moment. “Sit back.”

Valentine sat firmly upon his fine bottom, stretching his long legs out before him. His maroon eyes, so beautiful and vibrant, fixed upon me and latched. “Hojo,” he said in his gravely, lovely voice. “You loved her?” All the despair and hope in the world dwelt within his beautiful red eyes.

I did love her. I’d loved that woman with all I’d ever had. All I could summon. She’d taken me to the very height of feeling, and then dropped me to the nadir of hope. 

I shrugged, sitting beside Valentine. “I did,” I admitted, feeling my heart recoil from admitting a weakness. “I loved her more than a man has a right to love a woman.”

He bowed his head. His long, raven hair fell around him like a curtain. “I did, too,” he confessed harshly.

“I see that,” I murmured. “Look, just because she didn’t love us the same way, didn’t mean she didn’t love us with her full capability. It’s quite possible she gave us everything she had to give.”

At this, Valentine frowned thoughtfully. He turned his head aside and spat, then sighed. “I suppose, Hojo.” Slowly, he got up and dusted himself. “I suppose, too, that I can stop mourning her. But, I don’t know that I can. Mourning her is a part of me now, as natural as my desire for darkness and quiet.” He turned to look at me as I got up from the road. “Don’t you miss her?”

“Of course I do. I miss her and I miss Sephiroth, though neither of them would have pissed on me if I caught flame.” I smiled wryly. “I didn’t know what I had until I lost it.”

“I _**did**_ know,” he replied darkly. “I knew and I lost her anyway. I failed to protect her from you, failed to spirit her away.”

“She never needed protecting me from me,” I answered. “If she made you believe that, she misled you. Lucrecia was behind the Jenova Project one hundred percent, no one forced her. I never laid a hand on her in anger, either.” 

Valentine didn’t say anything more, just started walking again. The set of his shoulders told me of his deep depression. He believed me, didn’t want to believe me, and I’d hurt him. Again.


	25. Chapter 25

I almost felt relieved at having to fight monsters tonight. It gave me something to think about other than Lucrecia. Still, Hojo didn’t appreciate it when a bagnadrana chewed on him. He changed form, growing about three feet and turning dark green. He grew black claws, fangs and tentacles, and ripped the monster apart in seconds. Afterward, standing there and breathing hard, he fixed his cold, black eyes on me.

I stepped away from him, my hand on the borrowed gun. “Hojo,it’s me, Vincent,” I said. “Calm down.” He truly looked frightening like this. The last time I’d seen him change form, he’d been hideous, almost unrecognizable as anything human, but this… It was different when I could still see who he was.

Hojo blinked. Slowly, he sat down in the dust. I didn’t think he could talk. He seemed to be waiting for something… Ah. He just waited to return to his original form. I sat across from him to do my own waiting. One of his tentacles inched toward me, looking like a snake. I watched it, curious as to what he intended. He didn’t _seem_ aggressive.

The tentacle wrapped around my boot, then swirled to gently grip my ankle. His eyes met mine, no longer cold, but hot with lust. I shivered. If he decided to make a real advance, I’d have to correct him. I no longer found him abhorrent, but I wasn’t really of a mind to let him fuck me.

The tentacle crept farther up, twining around and around my leg. Slowly, he began to pull me toward him. I fought, kicking and grabbing for purchase on the loose soil, but he still dragged me easily. Shit. I might have to transform to defend myself.

Hojo put me in his lap and just stared at me. The moon illuminated the green nimbi around his dark eyes. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just sat there and looked at me. Relieved he wasn’t pushing, I let him hold me.

This felt strange. I sensed his slow shrinking. For some odd reason I had a feeling we’d done this before, with me holding him instead. I pushed harder for the memory and, after a long few minutes, I head Chaos chuckling. The memory came, then. 

Hojo had sat in my lap while I had my Chaos form, and had plucked cactuar needles from me. He’d spoken to me softly, soothingly, undisturbed by the danger of his situation. I could have become angry at the continued pain, and if I had, I could have badly hurt him. Trust a madman not to know what’s good for him.

Still, he’d treated me very kindly. I didn’t think I’d ever felt a touch so careful. I’d cursed his gentleness time and time again, but I’d certainly appreciated it then.

Wait just a damn minute.

Chaos had _**allowed**_ Hojo’s contact. Chaos _**never**_ did that. I tore through people, animals, anything in my path while in that form. My alpha demon must really like Hojo.

Hojo shrank to a size that couldn’t accommodate my weight comfortably. I got off of him. He stretched out in the dust and made a pained sort of noise as his tentacles began withdrawing into his body and his fangs became smaller. The claws must have hurt the most, for when they diminished, he groaned loudly.

I did sympathize. Everything hurt when I changed.

“Jesus,” he said softly. “What the fuck happened?”

“You took a Jenova form,” I answered.

Hojo sat up. His eyes clapped on me quickly. “I didn’t attack you did I?”

“No.” Inwardly, I smiled. “I think you considered raping me.”

Hojo, eyes wide, shifted his attention to the ground. His hands went in his hair. “It’s a real concern, Valentine. You need to be careful. I don’t want to add that to the list of things I feel guilty about for your sake.”

I wondered. If I took Chaos form and he took Jenova form, and we fought, who would win? I liked to imagine I would, but I had to consider I wouldn’t. He was strong in his human form, but those tentacles were stronger even than him. “I’ll be careful,” I assured. “If nothing else, I can fly and you can’t.”

“Who says I can’t?” he snapped, getting up. “Just because I don’t show off like my poor son, doesn’t mean I can’t grow a wing just like he did. Being afraid of heights puts a damper on such things.” He shuddered. “But, I have to think my wing wouldn’t be a pretty, glossy thing like my son’s. It would probably look like the wing of a vulture.”

I watched him straightening his clothes, fussing with his appearance. I tried to visualize what he’d look like with a wing, but I didn’t come up with anything repugnant, like he obviously believed he’d manifest.

His fear of heights really seemed a problem. Without that to contend with, I could transform, grab him and fly the rest of the way back to Midgar. We could be home quickly.

Again we began walking. The lonely road and the silence went a long way to soothing me at my core. Finally, we reached the outskirts of Kalm, where Hojo’s abduction team had grabbed me, Cloud and Tifa in the first place. I had contacts here, and a permanent room at the inn. We could sleep without worry today.

I led the bedraggled, irritable Hojo into the flop house, only listening to his complaining with half an ear. I didn’t know what had set him off, but he’d been in a bad mood since his transformation back to his original form. He kept up a muttering litany while I spoke to the innkeeper, got my key, and arranged payment for damages Shin-Ra incurred over a week ago.

“Have you seen my friends?” I asked the innkeeper as she checked to see if I had any mail.

“No, they’ve stayed away since those Shin-Ra people came here and tore the place up,” she answered with a wry smile.

“I do apologize for that,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “It isn’t the first time, you know. Shin-Ra’s always causing trouble. Don’t worry about it.” Her eyes went to the mumbling Hojo. “Friend of yours?”

“Partner in crime,” I replied. “Could you send room service up with food in about an hour? He hasn’t eaten properly and I’m afraid he’s going to go into a diabetic coma.”

The innkeeper accepted my subtle explanation of Hojo’s obviously scattered awareness. “I’ll get Jeanie right up there,” she promised. “Here,” she added, opening a cooler and handing me a can of Electro Cola. “That ought to hold him a few minutes.”

“Thank you.” I collared Hojo and began dragging him up the stairs. I had a loft room, the only one on the very top of the inn, and I couldn’t wait for him to recover from his craziness in the lobby. At the door, he began to fight me. “Let go of me, wife-stealing Turk!” he hissed, throwing a punch.

I took the blow, wondering just what was wrong with him. He hadn’t been this upset with me since we left Shin-Ra labs. It amazed me how hard he could hit. I’d have a bruise on my face.

Opening the door, I shoved him in. “Get in there,” I said harshly. Before he could recover, I thrust him into a chair and brandished the can of soda, sticking it under his nose. “Drink this before you say anything else.”

Hojo blinked twice, accepted the can and opened it. He sat quietly, drinking while I made sure my room hadn’t been tampered with. I heard him crumpling the can. He sighed.

“Better?” I asked.

He looked over at me. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you I’m borderline diabetic,” he said, his voice low and rather embarrassed. “It isn’t a problem unless my meals start coming infrequently.”

Amused I’d been correct when just making an excuse for him, I sat on the bed and began removing my boots. “I’m no man of medicine,” I replied. “Why don’t you carry candy or something?”

“I usually do,” he admitted. Slowly, he began to copy my actions. His feet smelled terrible. “You wouldn’t happen to have socks around here?”

“Go take a shower,” I commanded, pointing to the bathroom. “While you’re in there, burn those socks and wash out your boots.”

“With greatest pleasure, I obey,” he said, staggering off for the bathroom.

I turned on the radiator, then answered the knock at my door. Jeanie stood there with a tray. “Hi, Mr. Valentine,” she said cheerfully.

“Hello.” I took the tray. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” She threw me a grin and ran back down the stairs. I set the food on the radiator, hoping Hojo would hurry and not use all the hot water.

He came out wrapped in a towel and carrying his wet clothes. I sighed. Those wouldn’t dry before we had to leave. Irritated, I jerked them from him and handed him the tray. “Eat.” I put his clothes over the radiator, then his boots.

“You’ll make someone a good husband,” he said snarkily, sitting and commencing on the food.

“Shut up.” I went into the bathroom and started my own attempt at hygiene.


	26. Chapter 26

I ate as per Valentine’s order, then tiredly propped my head in my hands. I felt cold and rather bleak. This evaporated when my host came back out in a bathrobe, his hair dripping. Without that headband I could see more of his beautiful face.

He went to a chest of drawers and started removing neatly folded stacks of clothing. Leather, of course. He had complete outfits identical to the one he currently wore. He began dressing, his back to me. “Find a set and put them on,” he commanded. “Your clothing won’t be dry by this evening.”

I stood over the clothing, feeling myself recoil. “You have to be kidding,” I murmured. “I’m not cosplaying you, Valentine.”

Valentine whirled on me, and I felt glad his hands currently were too busy fastening his pants to do anything else, like grab me. “You’ll do what I fucking tell you,” he uttered lowly. “I’m not listening to you gripe about being damp and cold all goddamn night!”

A bit taken aback, I quickly grabbed a top and a pair of pants. “Okay,” I said in my best, soothing voice. I wondered when he’d acquired that bruise on his face… 

Oh, god, talk about _intimate_. I wanted in Valentine’s pants, but not like this. He had a larger frame than mine, and his clothing didn’t fit well. I could get the pants to fasten tightly enough not to cause a problem, but the length was nothing but unmanageable. I wrestled with the unusual configuration of the top, wondering if he had a bondage fetish. I didn’t have a problem with that…

“Hold still.” He knelt and started hacking with a wicked looking pair of scissors. In moments I could see the tops of my feet. He treated my sleeve cuffs the same way. All still felt too long, but I could deal with it better now. “Get in bed.” He threw the scissors into a drawer. “This evening I expect your attitude to be greatly improved. You’ve had a full meal, sugar, a bath, and clean clothes. With a good eight hours of sleep, if you aren’t more tolerable, I’ll strangle you.”

I thought he meant it. I climbed into his bed and lay stiffly, wondering if he’d get in it with me. I didn’t have to wonder long. He got in, immediately hogged the covers, put his back to me and went limp.

Hours later, when I got up to piss, I put on the new socks he’d laid out, then my boots. They were warm and dry and went a long way to soothing me. They soothed me so much, in fact, that I didn’t pay much attention to the sound of Valentine’s door opening.

Bright light exploded in my head, bringing pain and confusion.

“Get them in the transport,” I heard a woman’s voice say.

Woman…

Scarlet…

 

I awoke shackled to a very unconscious, bleeding Hojo. Six men with automatic rifles sat beside us. I closed my eyes again before they could see my wakefulness.

“What the fuck are we doing taking these losers?” A man asked. “I thought Scarlet and Heideggar wanted them killed.”

“Idiot,” another answered. “Quinn bought them.”

“So that’s why we’re flying to Nibelheim?”

“Idiot,” the harsher-voiced man said again. “You’ve said too much already.”

Silence reined awhile. Someone lit a cigarette. “So, how much did he pay for them?”

“Quinn? Bought these two for a little bit of nothing. Something about pre-approval on the ethics committee.”

Hojo had mentioned Samuel Quinn to me. He was an agent of New Midgar Alliance, and headed the ethics committee. He’d agreed to give Shin-Ra a clean bill of health if they sold Hojo and me to him.

“How much longer we got?”

“We refuel the chopper in Costa del Sol, I think.” 

“Heh. Got the time for a piece of ass?”

“Probably.” 

“Won’t take but a minute.”

Laughter. These men offended me. They smelled bad, spoke even worse, and hadn’t a shred of brains. Is this what happened to the mighty Shin-Ra corporation? They employed unprofessional or half-trained men? If these idiots went through the SOLDIER program, I’d eat Hojo’s gun.

No, I didn’t have that anymore. I could bet he didn’t have his knife or his materia bracelet, either. And, these men at least knew how to bind us in the most hampering way. My right to Hojo’s left. Scarlet definitely supervised this little aspect of our capture; she’d know Hojo was a leftie, and that my dominant hand was the right.

“We’re flying into turbulence,” a voice said over a nearby radio. “Are the prisoners secured?”

“Haven’t moved,” someone answered just before the helicopter pitched a little. “Maybe we should land?”

“Over the ocean?” the radio voice laughed harshly, then cut out.

Another wild, reeling pitch made the helicopter lurch. Hojo fell into the floor, dragging me with him. I continued to feign unconsciousness as several guards put us upright again. “Nice job securing the cargo,” a man snickered.

“You shut the fuck up, Daniels. They don’t have to be in good shape just for Quinn.”

“That’s good, because I think you caved the quack’s skull in.”

“No loss.”

Hojo suddenly woke up. I continued to fake it, wishing he’d had that good sense to do the same. Now I’d have to take these cretins by surprise at the perfect moment instead of any moment I chose. Goddamned impulsive mad scientist!

“The quack heard you,” Hojo informed, his voice pissed off and strident. “Who are you dunderheads, hm? You didn’t go through SOLDIER or I’d remember you.” 

I didn’t wince when I heard someone punch him, but I couldn’t help “waking up” when he dragged me onto the floor and the shouting began. Hojo had about a thousand tentacles out, but all of them only wrapped around a single man. The other men had rifle butts slamming down onto him, but he completely ignored the vicious beating. He was determined to twist that guard like a dishrag, and, by the screams, he was succeeding admirably. 

No help for it. Time for a real knock-down, drag-out fight.

I got onto my side and grabbed one of the guards with my legs, breaking his neck. The next one saw me awake and a threat, and raised his gun to fire into me. I kicked it from his hands, then kicked again and shoved his nasal cartilage into his brain.

“Holy shit, they’re _**both**_ awake!” One of the last two yelled, and they both fired into me. I felt pain awakening my demons…

“Goddamn it, Valentine!” Hojo shouted, slapping me in the face even while he continued twisting a man to death. “Don’t you fucking dare! Don’t transform!”

But…

I _**wanted**_ to…

Redness hazed my vision. I felt myself growing, sprouting bone at my skull and fangs from my mouth. Oh, Shiva, it hurt, but it felt so good to draw out the change. I gave into my animal slowly, enjoying the fear he inspired.

“Valentine!” Hojo’s voice became less distinct. “I hope I can hang onto you, you big oaf! Did you forget we’re chained together?”

I had a very attractive, smaller creature hanging from me like a bracelet charm. I held him up for a good view. Non-threatening. Quite willing for me to spread him open. Lust and fear made a good mix.

Something pierced my leg, making me howl in pain. I spied a man pulling something shiny from my leg and drawing back to do it again. I kicked him and he didn’t move anymore.

“There’s one more!” the bracelet-tasty shouted.

He wanted me to kill? I _**loved**_ to kill.

I grabbed the last man and ripped him apart, loving the hot spray of blood and the splatter of intestines. But, wait. He wasn’t the last. There were two beyond a metallic door. 

“Valentine, we’re in a helicopter!” the bracelet man shouted, thumping me on the arm frantically. I ripped the barrier off and beheaded one man before he could even turn. The next one I simply yanked out and crushed.

“Oh fuck! We’re going to crash!” The one I’d decided to mate, grabbed my shoulders. “Get us out of here, Vincent!”

He wanted out of the falling metal box? I could do that. I shouldered open the side door, and barrel-rolled into the wind.

I wished he would stop screaming…


	27. Chapter 27

Ohgodohgodohgodohgod, we had to be a million miles in the air. I couldn’t see a thing for the wind and driving rain, and I clutched Valentine tightly. Far, far below, the ocean illuminated, and I heard a blast. The rib cage I was pressed against rumbled with dark humor.

Lightning seared my retinas. He had us in the middle of the storm.

My god, what a beautiful monster. If it wouldn’t hurt him, I’d pick Vincent Valentine apart and make thousands of him. I could populate the world with perfect, unholy beasts. They’d make more, mating with the common and lovely alike, turn the human race into something physically suited to its ambition…

I needed to stop now. I knew the signs. I’d had about enough, and the cracks in my brain were widening. It would be better if he’d take me to ground. 

Problem being, he didn’t seem inclined to land anytime soon. He flew like a creature newly freed from a cage. He went so fast, and at a mere thought. His wings were so large he caught gusts rather than flapped.

_You can survive a lightning strike_ , I told myself. _Jenova was lightning resistant._

After what seemed an eternity of motionlessness, Valentine took us downward at a hard plummet. I felt like my tongue would fall into my liver. But, he landed us as gently as a feather upon a sand dune. “Oh, thank Ifrit,” I swore. He didn’t answer, of course, just leaned over and broke the only chain still holding us together.

We had to be on the unnamed island between Midgar Area and Upper Corel Area. Anyone searching for the wreckage of the helicopter, and survivors, would look here first. I had to convince him to fly us somewhere else, bad as I hated it. He still had hold of me, so maybe he meant to fly on anyway.

I twisted until I could look up at his face, and I knew in an instant why he’d set to ground. Lust shone in his eyes like polished, fire-lit garnet. Stunned, I gaped at him. “Vincent, we can’t,” I said as calmly as I could manage, but my voice cracked. Maybe if I made a commitment? “We need to get farther away first,” I added.

He blinked slowly. His gaze absolutely mesmerized me. This was the raw, powerful force lurking inside him, displaying nothing but desire. I knew, deep, deep inside, Vincent watched himself. He didn’t remember, but he saw; I felt him in there, under the demon, silent and observant.

Oh, _son-of-a-bitch_ , that turned me on. If Valentine wouldn’t have me as himself, then I’d take him as he offered. Maybe he’d eventually remember, and maybe not. It lay in my favor if he didn’t remember, actually, because he’d stop if he remembered. 

_No, no, no, you don’t have any lube! He’ll tear you apart! He’s huge!_

That annoying voice of reason faded away as Valentine grabbed me again, gently forcing me downward toward the sand. He blotted out the moon, his big, elegant wings briefly flaring outward.

_That’s it, Valentine, you lovely demon. Show me your plumage…_

I expected him to start ripping at my clothing, like a beast. To my surprise, he attempted to rid me of it the proper way. He fumbled with the straps and buckles, his enormous hands and claws learning as they went and gaining speed.

_Ahhh… I thought he’d show finesse…_

The cold rain didn’t bother me anymore. Valentine’s body blocked most of it, and, what he didn’t block burned to steam when hitting us. He smelled strongly of musk, and that steam made his scent go right to my brain. I’d never wanted anyone so much and so fast. Naked, I lay there, looking up into the most beautiful, frightening eyes.

_Are you still watching us, pretty Turk?_

I shivered as he drew his hands down my chest. He exhaled a huff of excitement, watching me squirm. Baring his fierce teeth, I saw the fangs trying to inch even farther down. He dropped his hands to my sides, then skimmed my hips.

His touch brought fire. His strength and power made the skill of his hands an awesome pleasure. I writhed, following his movements as much as I could. “Yes, Vincent,” I whispered. His low, answering chuckle made goose-bumps erupt all over me.

I knew I was like dead weight when he pulled me upward. I couldn’t anticipate how he meant to go about this. 

He lifted a hand to his mouth. I watched, bemused, as he bit off the claw on his right middle finger and spat it. Molten orange eyes upon me, he fit that finger in his mouth and bit down again, hard. It bled freely when he pulled it out.

The smell of his hot, rich blood excited me, stirred me back into memories I had no business thinking about.

_The Turk looked up at me from the table, crimson eyes pleading. “Just don’t hurt… her, Hojo,” he rasped. I ignored his silly entreaty. I wouldn’t hurt my faithless wife. He was the one I wanted to teach a lesson._

The feel of a blunt, blood-slick finger brought me out of the past. I braced on his arm, arched backward to see his face. He shifted into a kneel, obliging me, yet his finger never stopped rimming my entrance. Oh fuck, it felt so good! 

I hung in his rock-hard grip, moaning. He could do what he wanted to me; I’d even help him.

_“Take her out of the project, Hojo, please! The baby isn’t as important as your wife!” He tried to get off the table and I punched him into submission. “You remember she’s my wife now, do you?”_

He dipped inside, just a little.

Oh god, his blood! If he even scratched me, we’d exchange blood and I’d gain his vampiric needs! Terror for that scenario swept in, but almost as quickly replaced by lust. His big finger, inching in, pushed all thought aside.

_Ohfuckohfuckohfuck…_

I could hear my own, delighted sobbing echoing off sand dunes. Why he hadn’t just shoved into me with his dick, I didn’t know and didn’t care. This was perfect. More than perfect.

_Pretty Turk, I can feel you watching. Wouldn’t you like to do this as a man, too? I’ll let you bite me, during…_

He slung one of my legs over his shoulder to gain better access, his large digit slowly beginning to drive into me. I clenched down, and he gave a low growl of approval. Every third thrust hit my prostate. I felt the heavy swelling in my balls increasing, and my cock was so rigid it hurt.

Cool, damp sand at my back. Hot, solid body over mine. Wings sheltering me from rain and wind…

He gripped me, slid his tight, wet fist all the way to my base. I met him shamelessly, gasping my bliss to the night. In and up, out and down, he double-pumped me with maddening slowness, alternating strokes in perfect rhythm.

_Oh, Jesus, don’t let it ever end!_

He sped up. I grabbed him with my legs, both heated and chilled by his sound of amusement. He let me dig into his hard sides, let me brace against his force and help him. I’d never last, not against this ecstasy. 

I hung in his timeless grip, then pitched forward into a hot, spurting heaven. Everything in my body coiled and burst, and I spasmed like a man electrocuted. I shouted until my throat went raw and my body gave out.

I must have passed out, for he held me close to his body the next time I knew anything. Lazy and spent, I dragged my cheek against his hard, silky pectoral. His arms tightened around me a little. I heard his heart beat under me, steady and strong. 

And then, I went out for good.


	28. Chapter 28

Bright sunlight against my eyelids awoke me. I groaned against the harsh light and heat, rolled to put my back to it. Once kneeling, I dared open my eyes. I saw Hojo first thing, since he sat a mere foot or two from me. He smiled with almost more bright cheeriness than the accused sun. “Sleeping Beauty awakes.”

I sat down, feeling disoriented. “We got out of the helicopter, obviously,” I said. 

“Your doing,” he replied. “I’m glad you can fly. Even under threat of a falling death I don’t think I could have learned fast enough.”

All right, there was one piece of the puzzle. I’d transformed and flown us from the chopper. I looked out over the water and winced at the sun’s reflection. “Then, we’re between Midgar Continent and Upper Junon?”

“I guessed the same.” Hojo stood. “I hate to ask, but do you think you can sprout your wings and fly us somewhere else?” He crouched beside me, looking into my eyes. For a second I felt a blurring sensation in my mind, and his eyes suddenly overflowed with awe-filled lust. Then, I blinked, and thought I’d imagined it.

I could probably fly us out in an hour or so, and I told him that slowly. I felt very odd, almost outside myself yet so far inside that coming out to talk became a problem. It frightened me.

“What’s wrong?” Hojo put his hand under my jaw, tilting my head back. His eyes roved me quickly, examining my eyes with particular care. I felt better when he touched me, more grounded.

When he drew back, I grabbed his wrist. The mapping of his bones and beat of his pulse seemed far too familiar. I smelled blood everywhere. It had soaked this wet sand recently, mingling it’s essence with the salty brine. Hojo’s musk covered me, sandalwood, sweat and come.

“Valentine?” Hojo obligingly came closer again, but he vibrated with a delicious mix of admiration, fear and desire.

“I don’t feel right,” I rasped. “I’m either too far out or in.”

Hojo knelt, and I released him. But, I wanted to grab him again immediately. To stop, I dug my hands in the sand. 

His bottomless black eyes held mine. “So beautiful in your pain, Valentine,” he murmured. “I see you lunging in there like a noble stag in quicksand.”

Oh god. I hadn’t heard that tone of voice from him in years. I might as well be back on his table. Shuddering, I closed my eyes. I should have never, ever let my guard down, or trusted him for even the smallest moment.

“It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “You’ll be fine. I think Chaos is pushing his way farther inside you. Is that what it feels like, maybe?” He straddled my legs and pushed me onto my back. “Lay still. It’s a mental battle, so physical effort will distract you. Believe me on that one.”

I sucked wind, feeling him crawl off of me. Yes, it did seem Chaos wanted to burrow deeper into my soul, but, it also didn’t. It felt like a strong part of me wanted recognition. “You did this, didn’t you?” I accused, anger flaring.

“If I did, it’s indirect,” he replied from right beside me. “Why do you never remember what you do while you’re Chaos?”

“Because he’s in control.” I threw an arm over my eyes. “Sometimes, if I ask and he feels generous, he’ll show me what we did.” What was he getting at? Could he do nothing on the up and up?

“We?” Hojo’s tone lilted leadingly.

I latched onto that. “Yes, we,” I insisted. “He’s not fully Chaos and I’m not fully Vincent Valentine. I’m a flesh prison to him.”

“Ah.” Hojo’s short response made me all ears. “Have you ever tried to see what he does without asking?”

“Yes, and failed,” I admitted. “Goddamn it, Hojo, if you’ve got explanations, give them over.” I wasn’t in a mood for cryptic questions and answers. Darkness coiled and uncoiled inside me, splitting and seeking homes in deeper crevasses. I felt waves of weakness and power alternating in my muscles.

“It’s just a theory,” he warned.

“Spit it out!”

“Well,” he said, sounding almost reluctant. “I’m not sure you haven’t always had your demons.” He coughed lightly. “It’s just that-.” He stopped. I heard him sharply inhale. “Oh, you beautiful, beautiful woman! You smart, clever, intelligent little scientific pioneer!”

Worry clawed at my heart. I sat up and glared at Hojo. “What? Just what?”

Hojo’s head slowly turned. The bright admiration for Lucrecia still shone in his eyes when he met my gaze. “She split your personality, Valentine,” he said softly. “She took your inner demons, demons we all carry, and she gave them life. She strengthened you by letting your dominant personality, Vincent Valentine, have the control most of the time.”

It struck me like a blow to the gut. He spoke intuitively, but truly, combining my aspects, flaws and brilliance into a dazzling gem. I gaped at him, unable to speak or move.

“How did she do it?” Hojo asked the sky. “I have to know! If she’d done it to me, I might be able to get some work accomplished!”

He was right. Lucrecia had done this to me. Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker and Chaos were all aspects of myself. They represented blind fury, impatience, determination and power. My last few transformations had relied entirely upon power, which was why I hadn’t used the other three.

It was all in my head. My demonic personalities were _**me**_ and they had _**always**_ been me. I was just as crazy as Hojo.

“Stop that.”

I snapped surprised eyes to Hojo, who sat beside me again. “I’m crazy,” I told him. “And I can’t even get any help with that.”

Hojo blinked rapidly twice. “Valentine, I’m going to go slowly and use small words, okay?” He touched my shoulder. “You aren’t crazy. This is not about your mental grip at all. This is about controlling emotional parts of yourself. You’re doing very well, you have to know that.”

I _**did**_ do well with my demons. So, what had caused this new trouble, this swirling doubt and confusion? “Then, what caused this sudden epiphany?” I asked. “What’s different?” I knocked his hand off my shoulder. “It’s got something to do with you, Hojo, I know it!”

Hojo’s expression changed into affected blandness. “Oh yes, blame the mad scientist, blame Hojo,” he said tiredly, rolling his eyes.

His careful scorn set a fire in me. I dove upon him, pushing him into the sand and straddling him. “Damn it,” I seethed. “I know in my gut that this all centers around you!” I grabbed his shirt and hauled him closer to my face, feeling my blood teeth coming out. “It _**has**_ to be you! No one else can cause me so much grief!”

“You’re right,” he said calmly. “It’s all my fault. All of it. Past, present, future, it’s all me.” He sat up, forcing me off of him. “Now, since you won’t be able to become your demon for awhile, help me figure a way off this island.”


	29. Chapter 29

Another damned raft. At least this one was strong, able to take us all over the five fucking oceans if need be. I dearly hoped it wouldn’t need to carry us farther than the port at Costa del Sol.

Shit. I was roasting in this black leather. How did Valentine stand it? The salt water and the sun made it shrink against my body. The leather now fit me as well as it did him, but that just meant it felt like I had a black, heat-absorbing skin.

“I know you’ve done something to me, damn it,” he said, catching my eyes.

“Why?” I asked immediately. “What’s different? How could I affect Chaos?”

Valentine frowned. He started to say something, then turned his head away. I’d never learn anything like this. How could I help him if he wouldn’t go into his symptomology? I’d already done the noble thing and decided not to actively conceal what he’d done to me as Chaos. Couldn’t he meet me halfway, too?

I stripped off my top. I couldn’t stand it anymore. So constraining, and in every way. I felt the suffocation of not speaking, of not confessing, of not laying my soul as bare to him as my body.

I stretched out, used my rolled up shirt for a pillow and closed my eyes. If only he wasn’t tender with me while in his demonic form! Did he only give himself permission to feel things while Chaos had his reins?

“I’m thirsty,” he murmured.

I could bet. We’d floated all day and all night on this raft, barely speaking to one another. Now, with the sun high into the next morning, he felt the pinch of hunger, thirst, and boredom. He knew the truth of his demons and now felt resolved to never let them out, effectively trapping us here.

I’d give him the coming night to make up his mind about himself, then, I’d push. Better to deal with him as his demon, anyway. He seemed eager to please me when in that form. And, if reasoning failed, I’d just use my materia to get us off this accursed, floating skin cancer platform.

“Why does Samuel Quinn want us, Hojo?” he asked, his raspy voice very quiet.

“I believe he must want us to prevent the cure of X2Geostigma,” I answered, seeing no reason not to be civil with him if he could treat me likewise. “I have nothing to support that, however. Just a feeling…”

“Then, he might have orchestrated your assassination attempts, not Scarlet and Heideggar?” he asked.

“Possibly. And, what of Rufus? Where did he go?” I rolled to my side and looked at him. “What if Quinn got him first? Would he still be alive?”

Valentine lay down beside me and shielded his eyes with an outstretched hand. “Rufus is more good alive than dead,” he said, thinking out loud.

Did he have to be so unfuckingbelievable in his beauty? It wasn’t fair. Vincent Valentine or Chaos, he was nothing but goddamn magnificent. 

“Hojo?”

“Yes?”

“Did I… fuck you?” he asked quietly.

Our faces lay only inches apart. I tried to wet my lips, but my tongue had turned to sandpaper yesterday. “In what sense?”

He bared his lovely teeth at me. “Did I put my dick in you?”

“No,” I answered quite honestly, hating him for his immediate sigh of relief. “What makes you think you did?”

He averted his eyes again. Patience gone, I reached for his jaw and yanked him back. “You look at me, pretty Turk,” I demanded. “You owe me your eyes no less than I owe you mine.” I stared into that gorgeous, distressed crimson, seeing just how unsteady he was. 

I deeply regretted figuring out his demonic possession. He’d embraced his nature until I’d blurted out a bit of intuitive genius. Without me screwing him up he’d be quite content to believe his demons came from the outside, not the inside. Once again, my best intentions only brought someone pain.

“What makes you think you put your dick in me,” I repeated, grabbing onto my last, emergency-ration shred of endurance. “You wouldn’t ask that without a reason.”

Again, he frowned. “It’s a fog, but I keep seeing you under me,” he confessed.

I nodded. “Well, your dick didn’t go where select few have gone before, I assure you,” I said gently. I’d let him figure it out on his own. “Now, you were awake before me in the helicopter, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I overhead that Samuel Quinn bought us from Scarlet and Heideggar, and we were flying to Nibelheim to be delivered.” Valentine shrugged slightly. “I think we should go there and ruin any future plans to grab us.”

“That sounds like a wonderful plan.” I rolled to my back. “In the meantime, I think I’ll get a tan.” I started shucking my pants.

“You aren’t,” Valentine almost whispered.

“I am.” Once upon a time I’d loved doing this, sunbathing naked. No better opportunity than now to remember that indulgence. “I can’t really get burned, even if I feel like I’m going to ignite. I might as well take advantage.”

Even though I quickly settled into a sun-worshipping sleepiness, I felt him looking at me. I felt those eyes. He examined every inch of me, and, when I turned over, he started from that angle. My ass burned more from his stare than the sun.

Hours passed before I grew tired of sunbathing. I put my pants back on, feeling woozy and drained, yet also warm and relaxed. I’d darkened four shades and felt proud of it. I liked olive bronze a lot better than ghostly green. When I got back to Shin-Ra, and killed the Terrible Two, I’d find the cure for X2Geostigma, then schedule a vacation in Costa del Sol.

“You tan quickly,” Valentine murmured.

“Genetics, Jenova, mako and prior exposure,” I explained. My face itched. I couldn’t wait to get somewhere I could shave. I stroked my little goatee, remembering having had one for awhile… When had I shaved it off?

“I have Jenova and mako,” he replied. “Why don’t I tan? Is it the vampirism?”

“Maybe. Your father was extremely fair skinned even with dark hair. I think a lot of us became that way over generations of living under the plate.” I sat up. “Any sign of land?”

“I think we’re getting close to land. I feel a difference in the way the waves rock our raft.” Valentine scanned the sky, but fitfully, since the direct sunlight pained him. “Keep an eye out for birds. That’s a good clue, too.”

He was such an outdoors-man. While I sunbathed, he paid attention to the waves and the sky as well as to me. Hyper vigilance…

I put my boots back on, happy my socks were dry again.


	30. Chapter 30

I spotted land just at dusk, and woke Hojo. “I see land,” I told him. “Be ready.” 

He yawned, nodded, and sat up, reaching for his shirt. “You think it’s the port between Corel and the Gold Saucer? The land seems to dip inward pretty far.”

“Yes, I think you’re correct. If it’s the way it seems, we’ll have to cut upward through North Corel, go over the mountain pass, and drop into Nibelheim from above. We can’t traverse that desert of quicksand.” I carefully stood to get a better look. “Yes, it’s the port. We might be better off to swim from here.”

Hojo grumbled, got to his feet and began stretching. “Fine,” he said shortly. “I love wet leather.”

“Don’t be such a crybaby,” I snapped. “Try to keep up with me, madman.” I dove off the side and into the cold ocean.

For awhile I felt smug, knowing Hojo couldn’t possibly swim as fast as I did. Then, I felt something wrapping around my ankle, and I panicked. Hojo’s breathy laughter brought a full scale anxiety attack to heel, and I dog-paddled in place, turned and found him. He waved at me with a tentacle.

That was cheating.

Four of those long, strong appendages wound around me, pulling me to him. “Don’t wear yourself out,” he said, grabbing me with an arm around my waist. “You’re far too serious, Vincent.” More unseen tentacles churned the water, and we began a frighteningly fast approach to the port.

It seemed like only seconds passed before we felt land under our feet. We dragged ourselves from the surf and stood on the lonely beach under some lovely moonlight. Hojo retracted his extra appendages and sat in the sand. “I suppose there’ll be too many people looking for us for us to stay in an inn tonight?”

I thought about that. “An inn, yes, but a flop house or opium den should be safe from Shin-Ra spies.”

“As long as it’s warm and we can lie down,” he said, struggling back to his feet. “And, water. I need a drink of water so badly I’d kill for it.”

“You might have to. We don’t have any money.” 

We began walking along the port’s edge, getting closer and closer to electric lights and civilization.

“Leave the funds to me.” Hojo gave me a brilliant smile. I didn’t trust that smile one bit. “Just find a place you think is safe for us.”

After about an hour’s walk, skirting heavily trafficked roads and cutting across private property, I got us into a seedy, bad section of the port town. These places never really varied in their situation; they always stood in between the wilds and the upper class. I made us halt behind a large dumpster. “This drug den behind us should work,” I said. “Now, how will we pay?”

Hojo held out three different wallets to me. “With these?”

He’d picked pockets all the way here and I hadn’t even known. I took the wallets and opened them, finding a sum total of six thousand gil. Throwing all but the money into a nearby dumpster, I grabbed him by the shoulder and propelled him toward the red painted doorway only yards away. “A useful, horrible skill,” I reprimanded. “Your tentacles come in handy.”

Hojo tripped on a rock and fell against me. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m so tired.”

I righted him and we knocked on the door. I knew by the white sigil for excess that we had a drug den, and I only prayed they had room for us.

A huge man answered, covered in muscles, tattoos and track marks. He took one look at us and relaxed marginally. “What’s your business?”

“A private room and a pipe,” I replied. “How much?”

“Three hundred for the room, one hundred and fifty for the pipe, and a hundred more if you want us to pack it more than once.”

Hojo nodded solemnly, drawing our money from his own shirt. He’d picked my pocket, the little weasel, and without those tentacles. “Can we get a room with running water for extra?”

The huge man scratched his bald head. “For a flat thousand we’ll wait on you hand and foot,” he admitted easily.

Hojo turned to me, tucking the other five thousand in his shirt again. “What do you think, Vince? A thousand’s all we have.”

I didn’t blame him for not wanting to spread the knowledge of our wealth. Good for him that he had that much sense. “Let’s do it,” I answered. “The boat ride’s already paid for. The team will pick us up at the dock pretty early, and I want some sleep before we get on the ocean.” Let the man think we had people who would miss us.

“You have a deal,” Hojo said, giving the man his money.

In ten minutes we stood in a shabby but well-appointed room in the back of the drug den. Women, scantily clad in saris and artfully draped kerchiefs, changed our bed, laid out trays of drugs and their accoutrements, set down baskets of food and drink, and a small box. One of them directed Hojo to the bathroom. I stood alone in the room.

“We only have enough hot water for one bath, she said,” Hojo called out. “You want cleaned up, join me. I’m not going to be sticky one more minute.”

I shuddered at the idea of bathing with him. Still, I needed a bath. I cautiously wandered to the bathroom and looked in. To my surprise, the tub looked easily large enough for two, even three. We wouldn’t have to touch each other. I could handle this.

Hojo walked out. I took the opportunity to get in first, while the water still filled the tub. He returned a few minutes later with a candle, an orange, a pair of tongs, a pipe, a thin piece of metal and a few balls of red opium on a tray. He reached into a cabinet and found two bathrobes, and threw them over the sink. Then, eyes on me, began to strip.

The man had such nerve. I refused to look away from him, knowing he did this to embarrass me. In the light of the single candle, he glowed a beautiful olive bronze. He looked exotic with his slightly tilted, dark eyes, high cheekbones, long black hair and smooth limbs. “Good for you, Valentine,” he murmured, stepping into the water and taking the opposite side of the tub.

What did he mean?

He took up the pipe and packed it with sticky opium. “We don’t make such a bad team, do we?” he asked, his long arms flashing golden as he reached for the tongs and candle. “Halve the orange, if you would. Drop the peeling into the water and maybe it’ll help us get rid of the rotten fish smell.”

“We have soap,” I pointed out, but I did as he said anyway. “It’s even wrapped, so we know it hasn’t been on anyone else.”

“They fucking lie.” Hojo gave me a look, reached for the stack of soap, and began slitting paper wrappers. “Used,” he announced, throwing one after another into the trash without actually touching the soap itself. At the last one he stopped and peered at it. “Well I’ll be damned. This one’s new.” He tossed it to me.

While I soaped, Hojo toked. He held the pipe over the flame, got the opium inside to bubbling, and sucked hard on the stem. In seconds our bathroom smelled of opium, oranges and sandalwood. Not at all unpleasant, actually. I threw the soap to him and picked up a shampoo bottle. “Is this safe?”

“Oh, it’s all safe for us, it’s just the principle of the thing.” Hojo looked at the bottle. “Looks like the seal is still on it.”

I was starting to feel a little woozy. I dumped some shampoo on my head and started making lather. Hojo’s image seemed a bit fuzzy. He blew a plume of brown vapor at me and that impression of fuzziness increased. I felt very, very relaxed. The hot water and the smells in here made me feel calm.

I slid down and submerged in order to rinse my head. Hojo was still smoking when I popped back out. He exchanged pipe for shampoo and while he cleaned his hair, I took a long drag of acrid vapor.

Time melted.

I’d never felt so liquid of body or uncomplicated of mind. After the stresses of this journey and the recent news of my own nature, I felt ready for such ease.

Hojo unwrapped another ball of opium, dropping it into a section of orange he’d scooped out. With the thin, flexible piece of metal from the tray, he rolled the opium around and around the orange pulp.

“What are you doing?” I asked, mesmerized by the deft movements of his hands.

“Changing part of this opium to heroin,” he said. “Not enough to make it an issue, but enough for decent painkilling.” He cast a glance at my head. “No conditioner for you, pretty Turk?”

“Conditioner,” I mumbled, reaching for it. I never used the stuff, but I’d try it. The cold, slippery cream made me shiver.

Hojo smoked some more, used the conditioner himself, then moved the tray back and climbed from the tub. Standing naked before the sink and mirror, he picked up a straight razor, wiped it and stared at it. Slowly, he soaped his face and began to shave.

I watched stroke after stroke reveal his face. It fascinated me, the flash of bright metal in this dark room. He moved carefully, with skill, and in no time he had a clean face. He brushed his teeth and cleaned his ears, then turned to look down at me. “You’re going to wrinkle up.”

No longer much concerned with being naked in front of him, I got out and accepted the towel he offered. He left me unhurriedly, and I brushed my own teeth. Taking the remaining bathrobe, I left the bathroom.

Hojo waved me over to our little table. “They brought us plenty of food, and it isn’t bad,” he informed.

“You said you needed a painkiller,” I blurted while reaching for a pitcher of water.

“My head hurts. It’ll heal quickly,” he said.

I looked and saw a dark mottling near his temple, no doubt where Scarlet had knocked him out.

We ate and drank for nearly an hour before stopping. Hojo smoked a hash pipe, passed it to me, and loaded our dirty things back onto the tray they’d arrived upon. He set it outside the door, then turned and slid every bolt into its housing. “I don’t want an ugly wake up in the morning,” he said in an ominous voice. “We have seven hours of sleep ahead of us and I’m going to get every damned minute.”

I smiled, feeling the same way. I liked hash more than opium…

“You’re smiling,” Hojo said, and suddenly he was standing over me. I let him cup my jaw and tilt my face toward his. His knowing, answering smile spoke volumes. “Good, Vincent, good,” he praised. “Does it make your face hurt?”

“No.” I gave him back the pipe. “Are we getting in bed now?”

He looked at me a long moment, his black eyes deep and dark. “You are,” he answered at last, picking up the small, curious box from our table. “Take off your bathrobe and get on your stomach.”

The bed felt cool and smooth. I sighed heavily, feeling Hojo moving my hair to one side. Something warm and slick dribbled over my back, and then his hands were playing in it, gliding over my sore muscles.

Oh, _**god**_. I groaned and went completely limp. He had magical hands, hands that knew anatomy and pressure points and hot spots. This was heaven, pure heaven. Dark, quiet room, good smells, strong hands kneading away pain…

It felt like he manipulated my back for hours. But, I eventually felt the pleasant scratch of a heavy towel, wiping me of oil. A cool sheet draped over me. Hojo stretched out alongside me, releasing a pleased, tired sigh.

And sleep took us both.


	31. Chapter 31

I hated to awaken him, I really did. He lay on the bed like a slumbering god, sheet artfully flung over his cock but leaving one entire leg and the rest of his beautiful body to my view. I could stare at him for hours and not tire of it. But, we needed another good meal and to slink out of town before the sun really came out.

I leaned over him. “Valentine,” I said softly.

His eyes popped open. He sat up and released a breath. “What time is it?”

“And hour and a half to dawn,” I informed. “I had them bring us breakfast.”

He dressed and joined me at the food. To my pleasure, he had an appetite this morning. I handed him our money, which he took without a word. I’d made my point last night, after all. He might be the outdoors-man, but I was the experienced city boy.

Jesus, his hair looked soft and shiny. It wanted to fall back into those almost-dreads, those odd spikes, though, so I knew that was just the way nature treated him. But, he gleamed with cleanliness, energy and health, just the way I wanted to see him.

He needed a cloak again, and those odd, metal plated boots.

“I feel good this morning,” he volunteered. “Did you give me a massage or did I dream that?”

“I worked the kinks out of your back,” I admitted, feeling the bottle of oil and the bottle of anal lube in my only pocket. He really needed to put more pockets in his clothing. “You have one leg a quarter of an inch smaller than the other. I’m surprised you don’t have a lopsided stride.”

“You’re a chiropractor too?” he asked, with a sneer in his lovely, raspy voice. “Is there no end to your talents?”

“As far as you’re concerned, no,” I told him, pouring a cup of tea. “I’m brilliant, Valentine, a fucking genius in medicine and bio-genetics. You’d do well to bank on me in those areas.”

He looked at me as if he’d never, ever heard me brag, which couldn’t be true. I bragged as often as possible. No one else ever praised me, and I had an ego-quota to fill.

Seeming reluctant, Valentine nodded. “You are a smart man,” he admitted.

“Thank you, yes, I am.” I sipped my tea.

He burst out laughing, shocking me. “And so modest,” he added, clearly amused. “It isn’t like you had to work for your intelligence.”

He had a point. I’d always been smart. “No one just handed me degrees I didn’t work for,” I replied wryly.

“How many do you actually have and how many do you pretend to have?” he asked, smirking.

“I have nine medical degrees, a philosophy degree, and a professorial degree,” I answered coolly. “I have chemistry, mathematics, biology and botany degrees, too.”

Valentine rolled his eyes. “Yet, there’s room in that head for insanity,” he said, proving he had no regard for my accomplishments or natural intelligence.

I almost told him I had room in my ass for his cock, but then decided not to be deliberately combative. Just because he was in a mood to argue didn’t mean I had to oblige him. Besides, I liked seeing him back to his snap and snarl, especially since he would actually talk to me now. 

I finished my tea. “So, upwards to North Corel?” I asked.

“Yes.” Valentine drank an entire pitcher of milk before finishing all the food left. 

What an appetite. I wondered what had it stimulated so much.

We left in a timely fashion, but not until after I’d made him pause for a few purchases. I bought a pipe and some more drugs from the flop house, then bought cigarettes and a knife to replace the one I’d lost. I then took our money and left Valentine outside a fabric shop, and inquired where I would find a cloak for him.

“For that guy?” the woman asked, squinting to look out the window. “Huh.” She stared at him a long moment. “He never paid me for the one I made him six years ago.”

“What?” Startled, I reached for the money. “Do you still have it?”

“I couldn’t sell that thing to anyone else,” she replied smartly. “You want to pay for it and collect?”

“I most certainly will. How much?” 

“Three thousand gil.” The sales clerk started rummaging around in a box. “It’s heavy velvet, after all.”

I paid her. We had two thousand gil left. I needed to pick a few more pockets on the way out of this port.

She gave me the bag and I saw that signature red with mixed feelings. He’d probably feel better having this thing, and it would protect him a little, but it also made him stick out like a sore thumb. It would hide his face from me, too.

I managed to pick a wealthy man’s pocket on the way out the door of the fabric shop. Hurrying, I grabbed Valentine by the arm. “Quick,” I said. “Where might an arms and ammo place be located?”

“We don’t have enough money for-.”

“We do now. Where?” I tugged him into an alley.

“There are laws and waiting periods for handguns. We don’t have time,” he argued.

Fine. I’d do this without his negativity. I stopped a boy and asked him. He told me two blocks toward the center of the port, so I started walking with Valentine complaining all the way. It was too dangerous. It was a useless attempt. We needed to get out of the port. We needed to be careful. We needed to avoid people.

I walked into the arms shop, and despite himself, Valentine couldn’t help but follow. I knew he’d not be able to resist, once here. “We need a good rifle,” I told the man behind the counter. 

“A sniper rifle,” Valentine amended. “Do you have one from the CR series?”

“Yep.” The man took a long, impressive gun from the wall and set it down before us. “Sniper CR-1016. Longer range than any on the market. I won’t take anything less than twelve thousand gil.”

I saw my companion looking longingly at the rifle. “Sold,” I told the man. I counted out the gil. “Give us two boxes of ammo, please.”

In less than ten minutes we were walking toward the outskirts of the port.

“You must have stolen a lot more money,” Valentine commented, stoking the rifle barrel. He’d bought a strap for the gun to make carrying it easier.

I counted what we had left. We had a good seven thousand gil’s worth of ease in my pocket. “A rich man,” I informed. “He won’t miss it.” I tossed the identification and kept the wallet. “Here, I paid off one of your forgotten debts.” I handed him the bag with the cloak.

Valentine stopped dead. He took the garment out and shook it. “I remember ordering this thing,” he mused. “No wonder the shop looked familiar.” He donned his beautiful new cloak. I saw him smile right before his lips disappeared behind red velvet.

I had to admit, he looked more himself now. He seemed more at ease, too. Well, good for him. A happy Vincent Valentine pleased me very much.


	32. Chapter 32

It even felt similar to my old cloak, being made of the same thickness velvet. I felt much more concealed and at ease. Still, I wondered why Hojo had gone into that fabric store in the first place. He couldn’t have known I had a cape in there; I hadn’t even known, really.

I watched him slyly, using my peripheral vision. He looked so odd in my clothes. I hadn’t paid much attention before, because of my irritation with him, but now… Now I _**had**_ to look, because the clothing had shrunk to fit him perfectly. If he only had a bandana and cloak, I’d have my very own mini-me with glasses.

I laughed inside. Hojo. Mini-me. Mini-me-Hojo. Sounded like a doll’s name.

He turned his head to avoid a brier, and I gazed upon his smooth skin. No, he was too dark to be a miniature me. A tan did wonders for how he looked, certainly. I’d never really seen his physical appeal until taking this unexpected, unwelcome trip. He always wore those ill-fitting lab coats, concealing himself. For a scientist, he had a healthy muscle-to-fat ratio. He wasn’t a small man even if he looked smaller beside of me.

“For the record,” he said suddenly, “you can’t conceal the power of your pretty red eyes. They bore through me like lasers.”

I decided to be completely honest. He’d entertain me by being completely honest in return. “You look better with a tan, is what I considered,” I told him.

“I always have. I’ve got too much olive in my complexion for the pale look to be vogue.” He stopped to re-tie his bootlace, and I took a long look at his ass. Why couldn’t I shake the feeling I’d done something to him while in Chaos form? He said I hadn’t put my dick in him, and I believed him. 

He straightened up and met my eyes. Seeking something, he held me for a long few seconds. Finally, his lips twitched as if he aborted a smile. “The lines are blurring,” he said cryptically.

“Meaning?” I’d yet to figure out if he spoke like a seer because of a true existentialistic point of view, or if because his brain just wouldn’t allow straightforward communication.

“Meaning, you’ve let Chaos further in. I see more of him this morning than I’ve ever seen before.” He leaned against a tree with his hands behind his back. “Don’t you feel better?”

I did feel better. I felt less like a hunted animal and more like a predator. 

Did it matter if Chaos and I united into one? I didn’t feel like I’d lost my personality yet, but would that eventually happen? I felt a wave of the old melancholy overtake me. No one would notice, probably, if Vincent Valentine blended into Chaos. No one except this absolute mad man.

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Hojo went on smoothly. “Of all I could have followed in medicine, I never cared to study how the human mind processes, figures, assimilates and heals.”

“Your point?” I asked simply.

“My point,” he repeated softly, still studying me openly. “I wish I’d taken those courses, now. I could have some intelligent input on how you’re supposed to feel. Yet, I doubt anything in the psychiatry books could come close to your struggle; I’d still be in the dark, wouldn’t I?”

Despite his words, I knew he had a better understanding of this issue than I did. I was too close to it to see objectively. And, the very nature of self-assimilation probably ruined objective thought from the get-go. “You know more than I do, regardless,” I answered.

He smiled. “Not about all things,” he argued, his voice still quiet and soft. “It seems that all I don’t know, you’re at expert level.”

“We’re opposites,” I shot back. “That isn’t unusual. It’s more unusual to be the same.”

He blinked slowly. I got a sudden and deep intuition that I’d just impressed him, or turned him on, or maybe both. “Being opposites,” he said slowly, “has little to do with learned skills. A person might learn woodworking to build their own house, or to simply enjoy a hobby.” 

Hojo relaxed his stance a little, leaning one leg and shoulder against the tree. “We’re both decent with a gun, though I’m sure you easily top my marksmanship, but we learned for different reasons. I first learned because hunting successfully meant a difference in my father’s household. I then took my skills farther for self-protection.” He smiled again. “You probably learned because you’ve always liked firearms.”

True. I’d always liked guns. Felling an opponent before they came into my personal space, appealed to me. “What does any of this have to do with wishing you’d taken psychiatry?”

Hojo blinked rapidly and shook himself. “You put me back on track,” he murmured. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

Crazy scientist.

“I just wish I could make it easier for you,” he said. “But, though I don’t have the needed degree, I _**am**_ observant. Watching you and talking to you is surely better than having a degree and interacting with you one hour once a week.”

Oh god, I’d become a project again.

“Don’t you make me your new hobby,” I said in warning. 

“Afraid I’ll throw your equilibrium, or afraid I’ll actually be of use?” he asked in that maddening, reasonable tone. “Looking at you distresses my conscience, Valentine. Since I’m not much accustomed to that, I have to conclude you’re a real soft spot. The question is, why?”

“You feel bad about what you’ve done to me.” That was an easy enough guess.

“Yes, but only because it bothers _**you**_ ,” he countered. “You’re a brilliant bit of my work, physically. My dear wife approached your augmentation personally, though. Yet, neither of us could deliberately or accidentally harm your intelligence.” He pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from his pocket, opened it and lit one with a flick of his wrist.

He still had his materia.

I shoved that thought back for now, because he was speaking again and I needed all my concentration to make sense of _**his**_ words. 

“You know what else you have that makes you strong?” he asked, blowing a plume of blue smoke. “Your nobility. I’ve marked it time and time again.” His black eyes wandered me with uncomfortable intensity. “I’ve never, ever known someone capable of your determination, anyone else so committed and driven once they gave their word or consent. You’re the ideal of knighthood.”

His words struck me in a tender area. Many, many times I’d felt impatience or disgust with people who gave their word and then easily violated the vow. I hated it. I despised oath-breakers and liars.

“No wonder Lucrecia found you so fascinating,” Hojo murmured. “You belong to a world of personal honesty, of values, of philosophy tempered by hard fact. She must have wanted you to shine, Turk. She took all those aspects of your personality that might get in the way of your higher being, and, realizing she couldn’t eliminate them, just separated you from them as best she could.” 

Hojo drew smoke again, eyes glittering. “She had no way of knowing that would screw you over, eventually. I can’t really find fault with her attempt, except for the fact that she had no right to complain over what I did to you. We achieved the same level of scientific blindness, made a beautiful monster. I’m very, very sorry you only have me to take it out on. I think you’d feel a lot better if you could give both of us a little punishment.”

Talking to Hojo nearly always meant confusion, pain, or terrible enlightenment. I stepped back and leaned on a tree, matching his stance and separated by piles of sweet-smelling pine needles. I felt compelled to give his thoughts some time in my head. Closing my eyes, I let my mind flow neutrally. 

Without intending to, my lost love had indeed done as much to harm me as Hojo. Did it mean so much that I got her smiles with her experimental serums? Had I loved her so much that I could ignore what she did?

Hojo still loved her, but in the way of admiration, in the manner of respecting a colleague.

I still loved her, but in what way?

In what way?

She was beautiful and kind, with soft words and hands… Hojo had soft words and hands, they had that in common. They had their work in common, too. Yes, they’d made a joint effort of me…

Like a thunderstrike, I realized they had something else in common, something raw and terrible and so utterly obvious that I’d never seen it. Or, maybe I’d refused to see it. Maybe I turned my face deliberately.

Lucrecia was every bit as mad as Hojo. They were _**both**_ mad scientists.

My eyes opened of their own accord, and I met Hojo’s intense, black stare. No wonder he couldn’t grasp why I clung to hate for his sake, and love for her sake. To him, he and his wife were the same.

They were the same.


	33. Chapter 33

I had no idea what birthed that sudden look of epiphany in Vincent Valentine’s red eyes, but it thrilled me. I loved seeing pure emotion, and that was all he ever gave me.

Beautiful fucking Turk.

I almost hated him for his loveliness. Instead, I caught myself wanting to worship him. I hadn’t known how very complicated and intricate his personality, how wonderfully varied his composition, until this journey. I’d missed his layers because I couldn’t get past the perfection of his top one.

I really, really wanted him. 

His eyes moved over me without seeing. Whatever had his mind, had it good. It had to be absolutely delicious, and I wished he’d share.

My heart flipped over as he shoved off the tree trunk, advanced and grabbed me by the shoulders. Aggressively, he took my face in his hands and just stared into my eyes. A tremor ran through me, created of sudden awareness. All craziness aside, he could crack me like I’d cracked coconuts to feed him. It didn’t help he had a claw point poised under my right eyeball.

Our harsh breathing joined into a primal sort of song. Valentine continued to stare into me, seeking, looking for something. I had nothing to hide, but not knowing what he wanted made just giving it a problem.

“Sometimes, Hojo, I really hate your honesty,” he said, releasing me. He looked like I’d pulled a rug out from under him. “Other times, I rely upon you for it.”

Well, good news, but what did my honesty have to do with anything? I tossed my cigarette butt, and then thought better of leaving it. I made sure to grind it down to atoms to prevent a fire. “Will we reach North Corel by evening?”

“Most likely.” Valentine tightened and adjusted his bandana, briefly affording me a view of his pointed ears. His hands were shaking. He stalked away without another word, leaving me baffled as to what set him off.

I followed him all day, not initiating any conversation. Some instinct just told me not to speak. He had something serious percolating in his pretty head.

If anyone wanted my opinion, I’d tell them North Corel stood as a perfect example of what damage Shin-Ra can do. I’d never seen such an abysmal, depressing little shit-hole in my life. The people wandered around in the aimless way that barely-there survivors of a holocaust will; with unfocused anger, confusion and dismissal apathy.

Yet, Valentine had friends here. He had friends everywhere.

“Stay in the inn,” he mumbled.

The inn was a shit-hole, just like the town. I felt sorry for these people, really. A lot of them looked like they needed medical attention. The chance of a physician out here was slim to none. The little girl standing beside the proprietor held her arm awkwardly. The girl’s mother had a terrible case of sunburn and a pronounced limp.

Feeling gloomy, I followed Valentine upstairs to the room. It had two single beds instead of one larger one, to my disappointment. He ordered food brought up to us and sat down. He took off his boots and assumed a brooding pose, one leg stretched flat, one bent at the knee, and his arm draping over. His claws dangled, clicking together as he lost himself in thought.

So beautiful…

The food came. Cabbage soup and stone-ground wheat bread with extra grit. I didn’t complain. It was obvious they offered their best. And, it did go a long way to making my stomach less shriveled. Valentine joined me after awhile. He too, ate without comment.

“We’ll have to kill him,” he announced. “Quinn can’t continue this.”

I nodded in agreement. I wouldn’t give up on getting Scarlet and Heideggar, however. They owed me. They owed me so much I doubted their deaths would satisfy. I wanted them tortured.

I noticed Valentine staring at me. Turning my head, I frowned. “What?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he answered quietly, going back to his brooding pose on the bed.

“Thirsty?” I asked, watching him flex his metal fingers. 

He made a golden fist, then relaxed in the same two seconds. His leather clothing creaked as he flexed his muscles. “My blood thirst comes soon after I recover from becoming Chaos,” he revealed quietly. “It ebbs and flows like tide water. Right now, it’s merely approaching high tide.”

I’d suspected as much. 

I started un-strapping my shirt, feeling his eyes upon me.

“I don’t think you’ve eaten well enough,” he said after a moment. I heard fear in that lovely voice. Attacking me on the spur of the moment, at highest tide, was one thing, but just approaching me for the blood was something else. 

For one thing, feeding from me hit us both as an intimate act. I wanted closeness with him, but he shied from it. Valentine denied himself pleasure as a habit. But, habits can be broken. Who better to help him kick a habit than me, a doctor?

“I’m not willing to donate unless I’m clean,” I said, making it seem more like I followed orders than offered. He’d either go with that or not, but he’d lose his fear. I got up and went to our tiny, tiny bathroom. Taking a pitifully thin but clean washcloth, I started washing my face, neck and chest.

He came in as I removed my glasses, standing just inside the threshold, his powerful body filling the frame. I shivered at his aroused scent. Feeling a bit intimidated by his presence, I rinsed and dried. Jesus Jumped-Up Christ, he’d make a straight man spread his legs. I no sooner had my glasses in hand than he grabbed me. 

I found it interesting, this contrast between Chaos treating me gently and Vincent Valentine treating me roughly. He struck inner balance, there, surely, for if he treated me roughly in his demon form, he’d kill me. And, he risked too much to be gentle with me as himself.

We half-fell from the bathroom. Valentine latched fingers in my hair and teeth in my throat.

_**Oh…** _

This blend of feelings simply overwhelmed. It was new all over again. I knew I’d felt this twice before, but it felt no less powerful. Feeling like a prey animal had benefits. I loved submitting to him, loved how he held me so tightly. He vibrated such strength while drinking from my vein, such intense want.

I could get more out of the Turk, I knew it.

I struggled with him, made it a fight by faking second thoughts. He growled, wrestled me to the nearest bed and pinned me to it. Giving me a small but forceful shake of warning, he never let up feasting upon me.

I relaxed into the bliss, drifting on waves of purest pleasure. I found it very hard to lie still and not touch him, but I knew if I crossed that line, he’d withdraw. He’d figure out I really wanted this. I couldn’t have that.

Ecstasy crashed upon me, prompting an orgasm without ejaculate. In between raw gasping and thrashing, I wondered _how_ he could do that to me. Men always produced _something_ when they came, even if just the miserly drops of a man too hard used. 

The prickling pain at my neck brought me back down a little, but not much. Though well aware he could really hurt me with those teeth, I knew he wouldn’t unprovoked. But, I was getting sleepy, a warning sign of significant blood loss. “Valentine,” I whispered. “I think you’d better pull away now.”

He came to human awareness. He stilled, and then removed his teeth. I felt a swell of blood escaping the holes. Shuddering, he tilted his head and licked across the wound. A burst of blinding pleasure seized me, wrung me out for nearly a whole ten seconds. When it subsided, I couldn’t feel blood leaking anymore.

“Are you all right?” he asked, voice rich and harsh at the same time.

“Just sleepy,” I mumbled, barely aware. “Cover me up, would you? Cold.”

A scratchy but warm weight draped over my body. “It’s cold in here,” he admitted, tone adrift with his mysterious inner workings. I heard something heavy dragging, then felt a slight bump. He’d pushed our beds together.

Just as I felt him press against me, it began to rain. I fell asleep to his warmth and to the gentle noise of water falling.


	34. Chapter 34

Hojo’s soft, rhythmic breathing brought me comfort, and I hated that. I licked my right upper fang, waiting for it to recede. Sometimes it didn’t retract as fast as the others…

I hated that I loved his taste, too. He made me feel drunk. It never lasted long enough to be a problem, but right now I wouldn’t have a chance in hell of acting with my usual speed or strength. Hojo’s blood doled out power in the long run, but it did satisfy immediate hunger. Each time I tapped his vein, I felt better, more complete in some way.

He turned toward me, putting his face on my arm and using me for a pillow. I lay there frozen a moment, torn between accepting or refusing his touch. I hated touching people as a rule, but Hojo’s skin to skin contact never felt like I imagined. It changed every time it happened. Right now, his flesh made me feel… warm. Very warm, actually; like his blood reached for him through me.

Experimentally, I brought him very close. He settled into my arms with a long, drawn out sigh of absolutely shameful enjoyment. Throwing his right leg over my hip, he dropped a hand down to my ass and let it lay there.

A small, unintentional laugh escaped me. His irrepressible nature had shining moments, and this particularly stood out. He wasn’t even awake and he tried to grope me. I’d felt him struggling against touching me while I drank his blood, but it seemed he couldn’t keep his willpower while asleep.

It wouldn’t hold up in court. My pulling him close could be seen as entrapment.

I knew somehow, some way, I’ll been sexually active with him. I just _**knew**_ it. He wouldn’t tell me, either. And, I’d been ruined to just ask Chaos what had happened. Knowing Chaos never existed outside my own mind really bothered me in my unguarded moments.

I forced my mind toward the goal of remembering. Again I accessed a white fog, with occasional glimpses of Hojo’s face. I caught fear, hope, and desire. Then, finally, unmistakable pleasure. From the angle, I must have been right on top of him. But, he hadn’t lied to me, damn it!

I kept reviewing that scene, attempting to see more, to no avail.

Hojo’s quiet, soft breathing pulsed against my neck. For just a moment I felt like just tightening my arms and crushing him. The moment passed very quickly. I relaxed and closed my eyes. I needed sleep.

 

When I awoke, Valentine was tending to his morning hygiene. I watched him wiping his bare chest with a washcloth, fascinated by his range of motion. He had arms long enough to knock someone out from across a room, perfectly sculpted and firm, just like the rest of him.

His red eyes flicked in my direction for the briefest moment. Slowly, he bent to wash his face in the sink. He took a long time, tending to washing his hair as well. With practiced movements, he pulled a section from his crown and knotted the hair there, ensuring he had a viewing hole. He then slid his bandana back on and tied it carefully. Still damp, he donned his leather top and strapped it tightly. “Is there some reason you’re watching me?” he asked.

“Does a man give a reason to watch a sunset?” I asked back. 

“It’s sunrise, not sunset,” he argued, walking toward me.

“Not in here,” I deflected, ignoring his automatic scowl. “So, where do we go now?”

“The Gold Saucer to make some real gil. We need wheels to get across that desert of quicksand and monsters.” He put on his boots and slung the CR over his shoulder. “Why aren’t you up yet?”

I obediently got up and dressed, rinsed my mouth out and tied my hair back. “I’m ready,” I said not five minutes after his verbal prodding.

“Good.” He marched out. I followed. 

In less than an hour we reached the tram between Corel Entrance and the Gold Saucer. We paid the attendant and got on. I detested these things, these suspended trolleys. What if a cable broke? Shouldn’t we have more than two measly cables holding us thousands of feet in the air? Why were the propellers so close to the cables?

“Calm down, mad man,” Valentine intoned as the trolley lurched to life. “Sit on the opposite side of me so we’re balanced.”

I parked myself, closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. I was _**not**_ in a cramped little balsa-wood box, climbing higher and higher into the stratosphere. I did _**not**_ hear anything, no chains, clanks, creaks or ominous popping sounds. The cramped, balsa-wood box did _**not**_ shake with the force of violent winds…

Valentine’s hands dragged me into the floor. He sat facing me, his face serious. “This better help, or I’ll have to knock you out. You were shaking the trolley with your convulsions.”

“It does help to be even a little closer to the ground,” I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself.

“This is perfectly safe traveling,” he answered, sounding disgusted. “I can get you out of here safely even if it isn’t safe. Can’t you control yourself?”

His comments and questions were starting to piss me off. “Control two phobias at once, is that what you want me to do?” I asked, suddenly just incensed. “Take my mind off it, then, Valentine!” I challenged, forgetting my fear and standing straight up. “If it’s so fucking easy, do something about me!” The trolley began to rock alarmingly, but I didn’t even care. I’d had enough.

Valentine reached out and roughly yanked me back to the dirty, sticky floor. In half a second I stared up at him from there. “Your crazy ass is going to lie right here,” he informed, snarling. “You even look like you’re going to get up, I’m going to prevent it as painfully for you as possible.” He leaned closer, his peeled-back lips exposing his blood teeth. “There, I’ve solved your problem.”

The rhythmic shifting of the rickety car made his body strike mine. I rocked back and forth between his spread thighs and braced hands. Having him overtop me in genuine anger felt both thrilling and terrifying, but I settled for thrilling. I felt reassured, too, for I knew he could rescue me in a second if this trolley fell apart.

I loved seeing him angry. He looked so beautiful with his red eyes blazing, fine eyebrows gathered and teeth bared. I’d always had a soft spot for men like him, but he beat any I’d ever played with. He had monster in his soul, right alongside avenging angels.

“Would it help if I actually fucked you?” he asked, surprising me out of my little staring session. “Would we be able to get on with our mission if I did? Would you stop your infernal, covetous looks and random groping if I gave you what you wanted?”

I debated answering. The truth wouldn’t get me anywhere, but neither would a lie…

“No, I don’t think it would make a difference,” I answered truthfully. “Might make it worse, in fact.”

He grimaced. “You’re so fucked up, Hojo,” he swore, sitting down and hauling me to sit between his legs and facing away from him. Keeping his hands on my shoulders, he gave me a slight shake. “Stare at the clouds or something.”

“What a splendid idea,” I murmured. “Show the man who’s afraid of heights, proof that he’s a million miles high.”

The trolley jerked sickeningly. I sucked a quick breath through my nose, let my head drop back. “We don’t have to return this way?” I asked, hopeful.

“It depends if Dio still manages the Gold Saucer. He never liked any of AVALANCHE but Cloud, so we may have trouble.” Valentine shifted a little. “We can expect Shin-Ra personnel there, too, so keep your eyes open.”

“Dio,” I repeated. “The man in charge of the races and fighting events?” I’d seen him once at a Shin-Ra mixer. His muscles had truly impressed me. “Is there any lodging in the Gold Saucer? I’ve never been there.”

“You’ve never been to the Gold Saucer,” Valentine repeated. “Hojo, even I have been to the Gold Saucer.”

“I’m a busy man,” I snapped, tired of forever defending my deficiencies in one way or another. “I don’t like parties, copious amounts of alcohol, gambling and whores. I suck at games and I can’t even win gil from a scratch-off lottery ticket. Why in hell would I go to the Gold Saucer?”

Valentine was silent for a very long moment. Then, he began to chuckle. I endured it for a while, then lost my patience. “What’s so damn funny?” I demanded.

He quieted. I waited a few beats before he spoke. “I said nearly the same thing to Cloud,” he confessed. “I hated that AVALANCHE had so much to do at the Gold Saucer. The lights, the noise, the obnoxious music, the alcohol and gambling offended me.”

Slightly mollified, I let my shoulders droop. The floor under us was disgusting, I noticed. A hundred years of used gum, spilled soda and tracked filth, and we sat in it. We sat in it because I couldn’t get a handle on my fears.

Slowly, I put a hand on the seat opposite me. Bracing, I got myself off the floor and into the seat. Valentine gave me a long look, his crimson eyes measuring, comprehending, and accepting. He settled back onto the seat across from mine. “Good,” he said quietly. “Good, Hojo.”


	35. Chapter 35

It became very clear to me that Hojo wasn’t going to do well here. I didn’t know if he’d have an episode or not. He stayed fairly close to me as we made our way through the events, balking only at the tube method of travel. I never liked zipping back and forth through these metal tunnels either, and I reasoned our shared claustrophobia had something to do with a shared aversion.

“We’ll see Dio first and get it out of the way,” I told him, guiding him by hand through the enormous crowd. If I didn’t hang onto him, I soon lost him. I’d discovered that the hard way by losing him right outside Event Square. 

“What do we gain by seeing Dio?” Hojo asked.

“I’m going to inform him we’re entering the chocobo races. We need a good bird and a decent jockey.” I pulled him clear of a knot of people, tugged him closer to me. “Stay with me, Hojo. If I lose you here it’ll be the devil to find you.”

I managed to get him to Dio’s informal office, where two men flanked the door. “I want to see Dio,” I told them. “Is he here?”

“You have an appointment?” One of the muscle-bound men asked.

“No.”

“Wait here and I’ll see if he’s in,” the other said. He paused to look at Hojo. “You a new jockey? You’re a little tall.”

Hojo stared at him like he’d stare at a lab specimen. He didn’t deign to answer. I met the gaze of the second man. “My friend could be a jockey?” I asked.

“Huh? Sure,” he answered. “Just a little tall for it. Still, he’s got the right build and weight, just to look at him.”

I looked down at Hojo. He gave me a lopsided grin. “I suppose I could try,” he offered. “You might have to seatbelt me in.”

It seemed facing his fear was good for him in the short term at least. Since he’d made himself get up and sit right in the trolley, he’d acted strange, I knew that well enough. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I told him. “You have no instinct for riding.”

Hojo rolled his eyes. “Human beings don’t have instincts. It’s what separates us from other animals.”

“Might not have a choice if you want in the races,” the remaining bodyguard grunted. “We’ve got a shortage of jockeys. Making Ester crazy, it is, though it don’t take much.”

“I take it the prison has few hopefuls?” I asked. I’d never liked the fact that Dio just arbitrarily dumped people in Corel Prison without benefit of a trial. To get out, one had to win a chocobo race here in the Gold Saucer. The man’s idea of justice sorely lacked.

“Yeah. It’s really bad down there right now. Got lots o convicts without no talent but killin.” The man eyed me closely. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

“I’m a member of AVALANCHE and the WRO,” I said. “Have you seen any Shin-Ra people here?”

“Him,” the man pointed at Hojo. “But, he ain’t never been here before.”

“Indeed I have not,” Hojo said tightly.

“Whatchoo doin’ with him, anyway?” the guard continued. “Ain’t he dangerous to you?”

“Not especially,” I said calmly. “He knows I’ll shoot him dead if he tries to get away.”

The man grinned, showing quite a few gold teeth. “You can’t take that big rifle in there, you know. If you want I can hold it on your so-called friend while you talk to Dio. That IS if he’s in.”

I looked down at Hojo.

“I’ll be good,” he said. “Borrow handcuffs from this fine gentleman with gold teeth. That should solve the issue.”

“You makin’ fun o me?” The man made a fist.

“I wouldn’t dream of laughing at you,” Hojo answered, smiling. “Some things are just too tragic to find funny.”

Oh god. Here he goes again, I thought with a quiet sense of desperation. “He’s a diabetic and he needs some sugar,” I quickly explained. “The longer he goes without it, the meaner he gets.”

The guard gave Hojo a long, measuring look. Slowly, he pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket. He offered it like Hojo’s accidental touch would poison him. “Here, then,” he said. “Eat it before I let you in to see the boss. Can’t have a crazy man going off in front of Dio.”

Hojo rudely snatched bar, but he did throw the man a hasty ‘thank you’ in return for the chocolate. I watched him, amused despite myself. He tore into that candy like an addict.

“Dio will see you,” the returning guard informed.

I handed my rifle over, grabbed Hojo and shoved him into the room ahead of me.

“Valentine, wasn’t it?” Dio asked by way of greeting, rising from his desk to shake my hand.

So good of him to shake my hand, considering how he’d dumped me into Corel Prison without batting an eyelash.

“Yes. I came to ask if we could buy a dune buggy. We have to travel over the desert.”

Dio flexed his enormous muscles. Hojo watched, seemingly fascinated by the display, his black eyes big enough to swallow an ocean liner. Dio caught him looking. I saw him briefly puff up to further impress my companion.

Well.

Big surprise there.

“I could sell you one for half a million gil, or you can win a decent chocobo and get the same result,” Dio answered me, eyes still upon Hojo and gauging his reactions to every little flex and bulge. “Or, you can win half a million gil at the races and buy the dune buggy from me.” He made a show of getting his hair off his neck, making his arms ripple. “But, I’m open to other…negotiations.”

In other words, I can extort money and time from you, or you can set me up with your friend. Well, Hojo didn’t look like he’d find the task bothersome. I made Dio meet my eyes. “Give us a dune buggy and Kanaye here will spend some time with you.”

Hojo turned his head slowly to stare at me. His mouth moved, but nothing came out, mercifully.

“Done,” Dio said. He got up and grabbed Hojo’s shoulder. “You come back for him in the morning. Where are you staying?”

“The Haunted Hotel,” I replied. Hojo shuddered visibly.

I left, shutting the door firmly behind me. “Don’t you leave me here, Valentine!” Hojo shouted through the heavy wood. I heard a thumping sound.

“Enjoy socializing,” I said, though I wasn’t sure he could hear me with all that thumping and banging going on. I took my rifle back and made my way toward the hotel. Maybe Hojo would be in a better mood if he got laid. He’d said it probably wouldn’t help if I fucked him. Maybe he just needed someone like Dio.


	36. Chapter 36

“Where’s the Haunted Hotel?” I snarled the question at a random woman.

“S-straight down the next pipe,” she answered, her eyes huge with fear.

I supposed I did look fearful. I barely had control of myself to prevent a full Jenova form transformation. Having to fight off a muscle-bound moron tended to put me off my normal level of calm, which wasn’t great in the first place.

Valentine would pay for dumping me with that man. He’d pay big time. I was going to punch him in the gut so hard he’d puke. I wouldn’t mess up that pretty face. Oh, no. No, I’d leave his pretty face totally untouched.

How dare Valentine sell my ass to that inflated, egotistical bully? He’d pimp me out but he wouldn’t fuck me himself? Dear fucking Shiva, I’d love to teach him a lesson. 

I popped out of the tube and right into a graveyard. At first it gave me a terrific jolt, then I accidentally kicked over a tombstone and found it to be cardboard. I tried to step over it and suddenly dropped into another fucking tube. I found myself back in Event Square.

Furious, I retraced my steps and dropped back into the graveyard. I belonged in here. I looked exactly like the arch-type mad scientist, making his way back to his castle after transforming into something awful to wreck the countryside. All I needed was my lost, beloved lab coat.

I huffed and panted all the way up the artificial, atmospherically leaf strewn hill. Barging in, I made to march to the counter, but a man in a hangman’s noose dropped right in front of me with a blood-curdling scream. “Welcome to the Haunted Hotel,” he intoned just as I drew back with the intention to hit him and flee for my life.

“Where’s your guest register?” I demanded of the fake suicide victim.

“We don’t shaaaaare thaaaat,” he replied, putting on a fairly realistic representation of a man spasming in his death throes.

I grabbed his collar, absently noting the harness he used to keep himself suspended as if hanging by the neck. “Where is your registry?” I repeated slowly, twisting the fabric under my hands. “Hand it over before I asphyxiate you for real!”

He complied, gagging a little. I dropped him, and the tension on the wire he hung from, jerked him nearly into the ceiling. Ignoring the hubbub, I opened the book and scanned it. There, the fake name he’d used at the last, horribly haunted hotel. Room 238.

I slammed the book down and made for the stairs, passing through an upsettingly convincing ghost. Fuming, I dodged a group of staff dressed as goblins, and hit the stairs.

One, two, three, four, five, six…

I was going to throw him down on the floor and tear at HIS clothes the way Dio had torn at mine.

Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…

How would HE like it when he realized he had to either fight me or get ass raped?

Twelve, thirteen. I looked down the hallway. His room was on the very end. Good. We’d need plenty of space.

 

Relaxing for the first time in weeks without Hojo’s presence felt strange. I supposed I’d gotten used to his whining and strange antics. Oh well. I enjoyed solitude, and I’d make use of my alone time.

I jerked as the door burst open. Hojo strode in like a man on fire, slamming the door behind him and locking it. His eyes showed electric green around the black, and his body trembled all over.

“That didn’t take long,” I observed.

“Indeed, no,” he answered me, his voice quiet and menacing. From his pocket he withdrew a little vial of what looked like oil. “It doesn’t take long when you have lube, as you are about to find out, Vincent Valentine.”

I couldn’t do more than tense up before I found myself in the floor, under Hojo, his tentacles wrapping around me with breathtaking speed. He knocked the wind out of me and imprisoned me in less than five seconds.

“You sold me to that man,” he said, tone low and terrible. He held the vial between us and slowly twisted off the cap. “Well, I wouldn’t take any amount of gil to let you go, Vincent. I’m going to shove my dick so far up your ass that you taste me.”

I really couldn’t move. His arms were free and I couldn’t even twitch.

“Afraid?” Hojo asked, not seeming to enjoy that idea as much as I might have expected. He put the vial behind his ear and began un-strapping my top.

Yes, I was, but not for the reason he believed. I didn’t for a minute think he’d rape me. He seemed capable of a great many things, but not of taking me against my will. No, I feared that I might enjoy this. He already had my blood singing, my pulse hammering.

Hojo wrestled me upright and stripped me of the shirt. To my surprise he put my gauntlet right back on. Meeting my eyes, I saw his gaze beginning to soften just the smallest bit. Suddenly, they hardened again, and he drew back, punching me solidly in the gut. I almost puked he hit me so hard, and I knew I’d hurt for a few days even with my accelerated healing.

Hojo got off of me, withdrawing his tentacles. He threw the vial, and it bounced off my chest to clatter to the floor. “Screw you,” he said coldly. “I couldn’t get it up to rape you.” With that, he turned and walked out of my room.

I knew he wouldn’t come back.


	37. Chapter 37

I stayed a good distance back from Hojo, watching him limp his way toward the end of our long journey. I tried and tried not to be impressed by him, but failed.

He’d completely immobilized me. My nerves still twanged uncomfortably from all the manipulation of my pressure points. My abdomen just screamed in pain. Yet, even with how I felt, I knew he could have done much worse. The cold black fire in his eyes told me how close he’d come to just killing me.

All these weeks I’d pushed him around, feeling superior because of my incredible abilities. He’d even caused me to have many of those abilities. I’d found it soothing to use the horrible talents he’d given. Contemptuous, I’d demanded he do what I tell him, even first drank his blood without his permission.

He’d let me do what I pleased. He’d been kind to me despite everything. At the time I’d believed he tried to make amends that way. Apparently I’d figured wrong. He’d let me do as I wanted simply because it didn’t bother him if I wanted to be dominant.

He suddenly stopped. He put a hand to his head. I watched him turn aside and vomit bloody bile onto the mossy ground. He retched until he dry heaved. Then, he staggered upright and continued walking.

Tough little fucker. I admired that, too.

Shiva, but I hurt all over. I wasn’t in any condition to fire-storm Quinn, and I doubted Hojo was either. I quickened my pace, though it made me feel like I might vomit, too. In a minute I reached his side. “We can’t go into town like this,” I said quietly.

Hojo stopped dead. He blinked rapidly. “I suppose not. What do you suggest?” His tone, even and without emotion, made me feel like a lower life form.

“We can camp right outside Nibelheim, rest up, and go after Quinn in the morning,” I suggested. “It’s going to take us awhile to…recover.”

Hojo shot me a look and started walking again. I hung back a little, my eyes drawn to his ass. I couldn’t help it. No matter what I tried to think about, I kept letting my eyes go back to those firm, leather covered muscles. Really, for the first time I admitted I had a personal attraction to him.

I’d enjoyed kissing him in Kalm.

Was that my motivation for pushing him into Dio’s arms? I couldn’t stand the idea that I might want him, so I tried to ruin any chance I had to screw him? Before yesterday, he’d have let me fuck him, even welcomed it. Now, he’d probably throw an eppy and outright attack me.

How could I even entertain the thought of fucking him?

 

We stopped at a sheltered, deeply forested area right outside of Nibelheim. Melting ice from the mountain formed a brilliantly cold stream above our campsite. We drank our fill of it and stretched out on the cold ground. A few minutes later, Hojo sat up and began cleaning blood from his face and neck, silent in his work.

I watched him take his glasses off and lay them aside. He carefully splashed water on his olive-tinted skin, then rubbed with the pads of his fingers. His hands looked so delicate. I would never have credited him with the force they could so easily display. His son had the same sort of beauty.

Hojo dipped his head in the stream and cleaned his hair with sand. Finished, he shook excess water away and stripped off his borrowed top, balling it up for a pillow. Putting his little spectacles in a loose fist, he breathed deeply. In moments he slept.

He looked vulnerable in sleep. With those eyes closed and all the tension gone from his face, he almost looked childlike. 

The temperature dropped, aided by the wind coming off Mt. Nibel. Hojo began shivering violently. He woke, groaned, and rolled onto his side, facing away from me.

I inched over to him, but stopped well outside his personal space. “If you’re cold, you can lay against me,” I offered.

Hojo sighed. “That’s very generous of you, Valentine,” he said, and I didn’t hear any sarcasm. “But, it isn’t a good idea. Thank you, though.”

He was rejecting me.

I stared at his slightly curved back, at the goose flesh and twitching shivers. Hojo was so cold his teeth rattled, but he didn’t want my warmth. He _**always**_ wanted my warmth.

And that was what drove home how I’d hurt him. He didn’t want me to touch him even when it would make him more comfortable.

It stunned me how awful I felt. He’d trusted me, and I’d violated that trust with little thought. It was bad, very bad. I’d gone long past the worst of my resentment towards him, and had used him like an ally, just like he wanted. Then, I’d thrown our alliance to the side in favor of a quick answer and a night alone.

Guilt was familiar to me. I knew that animal very well.

As I took off my cloak, I suddenly realized how he’d come to pay for it. He’d gone in the fabric store to see if a cloak could be made for me. When he inquired, the woman inside must have looked toward the street to see my measurements, and recognized me. A happy coincidence, but it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t thought I needed a cloak. He somehow knew I felt naked without one. 

Just a thoughtless act of kindness from a mad man. Like plucking needles from my transformed body and putting cool leaves on my back. Like trying to spare my clothing, and looking for scrub bottoms when I balked at the hospital gown. Like making me eat when I didn’t want to, and trying to help me come to grips with my demon problems.

I covered him with my cloak, remembering how I’d hated him for his gentle hands. A man capable of doing so much evil should be rough. But no, Hojo wasn’t rough until pushed. He didn’t rely on brute force. 

Hojo’s body went a little stiff. Slowly, his hand came out of the cloak. He felt the texture of the deep red fabric, and I knew he must be thinking about my tastes in clothing. But, he didn’t decline the cloak. Gradually, he relaxed. A short time later I heard him falling into deep sleep.


	38. Chapter 38

…strange how a cloak he’d only had for a few days could already smell like him…

I slept about four hours, then relieved him. He didn’t argue about needing rest, just took his cloak back and stretched out in the dirt. I watched him breathe, upset I still found him attractive. Fine, he’d made two gestures of reparation, two very fine gestures, actually. He finally felt bad for throwing me at Dio. Good start, but not enough.

He began to dream. I watched his eyelids jerking. He groaned and clutched at his belly. I knew he had to hurt there. I’d piled one bad hit after another there deliberately, of a mind to give him agony. But, the sound of his pain didn’t make me feel any better.

I could make him feel really good if he’d only give me half a fucking chance, but oh, no! No, he had to pawn me off on the first muscle bound freak he could.

I wondered if he’d yet thought about where Quinn must be staying. I doubted it. If he’d come to the same conclusion I had, he’d be vocal about his displeasure. Really, we _**had**_ to be headed right for the Shin-Ra mansion. Despite its ruinous appearance, it stood sturdy, and it remained the largest, most modern building in Nibelheim. Quinn would have wanted to take advantage of all the electrical hook-ups and the indoor toilets, like any good city boy.

The ghosts of the past I shared with Valentine would echo most strongly in that ostentatious house.

I checked my nose. Healed, thank Shiva.

Valentine groaned again, louder this time. “Don’t…shut the…lid, Hojo!” he gasped out. “Don’t shut me…away and forget about me.”

Maybe he did intuit where we had to go. I resolved not to let him enter into the cellar no matter what. If he saw his coffin after all this time, who knew what he’d do? He could destroy it, use the pieces to stake me, or crawl back in the thing and return to sleeping for another thirty years.

I thought about another time I watched him roll around in agony, clutching his stomach. Perhaps he dreamed of that day, prompted by the similarity of that pain and this one.

He’d bled so prettily, with such dignity, his pleading, crimson eyes matching the river that spilled between his fingers. Even in impending death he had to be perfect.

I took out the pipe I’d bought at the opium den and packed it. This should kill his pain.

“Valentine,” I said, nudging him awake. Those beautiful eyes… I could cut them out and have them for always…

He sat up. “Is it time?” he asked, gazing around in confusion.

“No.” I held out the pipe and my bracelet. “Hold the fire materia under the pipe.”

“What is this?” he asked. “Opium? You think I can function under the influence?’

“We have hours before daylight. This will relax you and kill your pain.” I pushed the items toward him again.

I saw him get ready to deny he was hurting. But, he stopped before the words even came out. Sighing, he took the pipe and used the materia properly, heating up the sticky drug.

It made me smile, watching him. He wasn’t a natural drug user at all. He held the pipe awkwardly and had to work to get proper heat under it. Still, he did well enough that fifteen minutes later he couldn’t have told me his name. He dropped the pipe, collapsing with a small but genuine smile on his lips.

“Better?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he answered softly. “Nothing hurts. Not even my mind hurts me.” He closed his eyes, still smiling while he sighed.

Against my will, I felt myself softening to him. If he’d only just open up to me and pay attention! I could handle rejection. I’d grown accustomed to it. But, I couldn’t handle being dismissed.

He wouldn’t remember it if I soothed him…

No. I couldn’t afford to touch him. If I touched him, I’d cave.

I picked up my pipe and sat for my turn at watch. I almost pitied anything that dared attempt to bother me and the maddening Turk…


	39. Chapter 39

Screams and the wet snapping of bones brought me out of sleep. Startled, I sat up in time to see Hojo breaking someone in half while in his Jenova form. By the first rays of morning light, I spied four dead bodies already strewn around him, and he held a fifth in his tentacles while slowly, slowly killing the sixth.

He had it under control. I didn’t rush over and take his prey. I knew he’d never surrender the still-whole man, and the one he mangled now would never recover.

My fuzzy head understood something about this situation was wrong, but it took me a long minute to figure it out. Hojo wasn’t in a Jenova form at all; I’d just assumed so because of seeing so many tentacles. No, he killed while still in his right mind.

His lack of expression made my blood run cold. I could stand demonic glee, or anger, but I saw nothing. It looked like he wore a mask of his own face. He slaughtered with no feeling, not even the enjoyment of a kill.

“Who do you work for?” he calmly, quietly asked the surviving man. 

The sobbing man went limp a moment. “I’ll- I won’t work for anyone if you let me go!”

Hojo sighed. “If only I could believe you,” he said, almost sounding sad. His tentacles began to tighten slowly.

“No, please! I have a family!” The man closed his eyes tightly. “I was only taking this job to feed them!”

Hojo put the would-be assassin on the ground, then placed his booted foot on the man’s neck to pin him. One of his eerie arms reached into the man’s pocket and drew out a wallet. Like he had all the time in the world, he flipped it open and began searching. “Don’t you have a skill other than murder?” he asked conversationally, carefully looking at cards and pictures. “Not that I’d call murder a skill. Anyone can kill.”

“I- no, I’ve never-.”

“You’ve never killed anyone before?” Hojo’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Well, your wallet certainly bears credence to that. Who’s the red-headed girl?”

“M-my daughter, Olivia,” the man answered, trying to wipe his tears away good enough to see Hojo. “She’s six years old.”

Hojo closed the wallet and put it carefully back. “Do you know who I am, Joseph Ghere?”

“I didn’t until I got here,” Ghere replied. “You’re Professor Hojo, of Shin-Ra.”

“Ah, you used my honorific.” Hojo finally began to show a shred of emotion. “Not many people do.” He stepped back, lifting his boot from Ghere’s neck. “So, you must know what I’m famous for?”

“For…” Ghere swallowed. He did not get up, wisely, but lay there in the dust like a dog, showing his belly in submission. “For making monsters.”

“Then you know what will happen to your pretty little girl if I see you return to this vocation.” Hojo smiled coldly. “And maybe your wife. Maybe your mother and father, and brother. Maybe even you, Ghere. I always need lab rats.” He leaned down and picked Ghere up, setting him on his feet. “I strongly suggest you forget about killing people for a living.”

Ghere dove through the underbrush and ran. Hojo, not looking at me, sighed. “Go back to sleep, Valentine,” he admonished gently, still emotionless. “We have hours before we can accomplish anything.”

A quiet, creeping fear touched my heart. It seemed I hadn’t been dealing with the full Hojo all these weeks…


	40. Chapter 40

“You realize where we’re going?” I asked him, drinking the last of his water. “There’s only one place Quinn could be.”

Valentine looked at the ground a moment. “The Shin-Ra Mansion,” he murmured, using that shiver-inducing rasp. “Poetic, don’t you think?” Lifting red eyes to mine, his gaze darkened to the color of old blood. “But, not quite ironic…”

Sometimes he really impressed me. Despite all Lucrecia and I had done, he remained very much his own personality. Smart, so smart, and he didn’t even know it. Didn’t think about his own intelligence, just like a wild animal. And, the beauty went more than skin deep.

I could listen to him talk for hours, but he’d never speak so much. I could look into his garnet gaze for days at a time, but he’d never meet my eyes for more than a few seconds.

Did he read poetry? Did he sometimes find a book that could distract him from picking at his mental wounds? Had anyone ever nurtured that clever mind, or had he relied only upon physical skills to survive all these years?

He shifted and grimaced. “I don’t like the way you look at me right now,” he confessed. “Especially in light of where we’re going.” He made a golden fist. “Is it foolish of me to trust you at my back, Hojo?”

I knew I shouldn’t smile, but I couldn’t help it. “I would have said ‘no’ before our trip to the Gold Saucer,” I told him. “It’s still ‘no’, but I can keep my fantasies, can’t I, Valentine?”

“What fantasies?” he growled, his body gaining more and more tension with every second.

“We’re going down into the mansion, and I know my equipment is still there… waiting for me,” I murmured. Truly, the temptation seemed almost insurmountable. I’d enjoy exploring him. This time I wouldn’t put on gloves. I’d caress every bit of his glorious, undead, luminous perfection with my bare hands. He almost begged me to do it. I laced my hands behind my back. “But, it’s old, outdated equipment, and not worthy of you at all.”

Valentine’s eyes began to brighten, showing the color of fresh, oxygenated blood instead of old. Very slowly, he straightened his posture from his usual indolent slouch. He blinked twice, a sign that he assimilated my words and judged my body language. Very slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted in an extremely small smile. “You’re walking in front of me today, Hojo,” he said, and I almost felt he teased me.

Incredible. He dared have a sense of humor about all this. Didn’t he know how very real a threat I posed to him right now? I didn’t answer or move, preferring to see how he reacted to that. But, he stayed as still and patient as a statue.

Yes, he _**did**_ know I was dangerous right now, but it almost seemed he welcomed that.

“You like me this way or what?” I asked abruptly.

He chuckled so lightly I barely heard him. “It’s familiar, at least,” he revealed.

“Feel order has returned to your universe?” I asked, coming closer to him by a single step. He amused me, this one-time specimen and long-time sore spot. “I’m glad I can give you some amount of pleasure.”

Valentine’s stare liquefied into deep calculation and… relief? Enjoyment? I couldn’t tell. He really did find pleasure in my aggression toward him. It soothed his world to have me this way. I found that both thrilling and sad. Time to press him in a way he didn’t expect…

He let me walk right up to him, just watched me get closer and closer until I only stood two feet away. “Maybe you should convince me not to think about you in context of a lab,” I said.

“How can I direct the mind of a mad man?” he asked, still seeming amused. “You’ll always think of me as an accomplishment, not as a human being.”

“And you find that funny?” I prodded.

“Yes. This trip exposed my humanity.” Valentine crossed his arms over his chest, doing that slouch-lean thing that meant confidence. “In showing me my demons don’t exist outside of me, the journey had a use after all.”

I paused. He highlighted a most salient point. No wonder he found this all amusing. I did too, now. I’d helped him remember his humanity while my own grip on it slipped farther away. I’d reassured him in two different ways, actually, if this sudden fascination with my predatory madness bore out as solid.

“It isn’t over yet,” I reminded, coming just a bit closer. “You know better than to start figuring before you’re given all the sums.”

Valentine looked at his gauntlet with casual attention, spreading his fingers out to examine the claws. With that arm slightly out, his head down and body in a gentle S-curve, he simply radiated coolness. Coolness that stirred heat, that is.

Sweet Shiva, what a man. Didn’t he understand that putting himself on display like this only made it more difficult for me to keep resolve? His eyes slid to mine, and I saw with a jolt that he did know that. He posed for me deliberately.

_Oh, Valentine_ , I thought with a strange sort of breathlessness, _you don’t know how effective your efforts are. Go ahead and show me your plumage, just like you did while wearing the skin of Chaos…_ He deserved _**torture**_ for tempting me, invited it intentionally. Maybe he wanted me to make things right between us by showing his willingness for it.

I was so hard even my borrowed leather pants couldn’t effectively restrain me.

“It’s all in the delivery, isn’t it?” Valentine asked, and I barely heard the meaning of his words. I focused on his voice, on his lips and face while he spoke.

“Usually,” I admitted, “but what are you referring to right now?”

He smiled, which always threatened to stop my heart. “You like to play with your food, Hojo.”

Yes, I did. And I could eat him right now…

No, I couldn’t. We had a job to do.

Yes, I could. I didn’t have a time limit. If I wanted to drag him down to the moss covered ground, I had to only act.

Valentine’s eyes half-closed. He shivered. “I can see what you’re thinking, you know,” he said softly.

“I don’t see how that changes anything,” I answered mildly, closing the distance. I nearly stood against him now. _I can see what you’re thinking, too, Vincent Valentine, you fucking tease. Wait until I have you strapped down. I’m going to spread you wide open, and you’re going to take everything I decide you need._

_I’ll clone you, and wear myself out on the copy before I even start on you, Valentine. That way I’ll be fresh, able to focus on you entirely. I’ll already know every sensitive spot, every place that makes you gasp and whimper. And, after I’ve explored you to exhaustion, I’ll make your entire body respond to my every whim. You’ll be a toy I never tire of, and I’ll wrap myself around you until you can’t think of anything but the painful bliss I bring._

I smelled his gunpowder-and-rain musk. He was breathing very hard now, almost as if he’d been running. “Does this excite you?” I asked, looking up into his eyes. “Does it make your blood run hot, thinking about what I might do to you? Do you like fighting with me?”

His lips parted. “You said it yourself, Hojo,” he rumbled. “Without you, I have no focus for the hatred that nourishes me so much.”

Smiling, I slowly turned my back to him. I didn’t move away. “You need that hate, Turk, or do you just need me?”

I heard his little intake of breath, the sound of shock. His heat radiated against my back.

“As long as you deliver,” he said after awhile. “I don’t suppose it matters, does it?”

“Well said.” I rolled my sleeves up and turned to smile at him. “Shall we go?”

Nibelheim.

Every time I came here, it gave me the creeps. The entire town had been destroyed, but Shin-Ra rebuilt it perfectly, down to the last clump of moss. They’d even populated it with people, brainwashing them into believing they’d always lived there. Cloud couldn’t put one foot in this town, and I only did when I had to.

Hojo didn’t seem affected by the atmosphere. I doubted he cared the entire place was fake. He’d given me the creeps this morning, too. Aside from how he’d handled our assassins, he was acting more and more like the Hojo I knew of old. Muttering, walking all bent over with his hands behind his back, stopping and starting at random, and staring at me like I was still behind glass in his lab.

But, that staring had a tinge of something else, now, of covetousness. It seemed he still wanted me even though I’d made him furious with that Dio stunt. I didn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand it felt comforting to have that constant, and on the other it seemed disquieting that I hadn’t turned him off.

We stood outside the Shinra Mansion. Hojo tilted his head. “He knows we’re here. I can feel it.”

I could feel it, too. I checked the sniper rifle, wishing I’d thought to get modifications for it. “We have two boxes of ammo, amounting to two hundred and nine rounds.” I’d already loaded the extra clips. I wished Hojo had a gun, too.

“You’re the marksman,” Hojo said evenly, his eyes upon a certain window. “Your skill is legendary.”

A nice compliment, but no one had perfect aim. I relied upon instinct, not actually sizing up a target with a sight and scope. I looked at that window, feeling my skin crawl. “What are you staring at, Hojo?”

“Quinn,” he answered. “He’s standing very far back from the glass, but I sense him. Jenova cells are good for that sort of thing. Concentrate and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.”

Unnerved, I tried to focus. A few seconds later I saw Quinn’s heat signature. And, I saw the outline of every monster in the mansion. The place was swarming. 

“Oh, you see the monsters too?” Hojo asked, though I hadn’t said anything to that effect. “Don’t worry. I made most of them. They’ll remember me. All we really have to worry about is what sort of security Quinn has in place.” Hojo cracked his knuckles. “You must have made your way out of there with AVALANCHE behind you, am I correct?”

“Yes.” Cloud had been a persistent little pest getting me out of that coffin. “We weren’t very high level at the time. We drank our weight in healing potions, and Aerith had to heal us every few minutes.”

Hojo turned his black eyes to me, curiosity and humor glimmering behind. “It’s hard for me to imagine you at a low level, Turk. You were exemplary even before your modifications.”

I grunted. “Everyone’s had a Phoenix Down at some point.”

“Not me.” Hojo put his hands behind his back. “Tell me, do you see Rufus’ heat halo anywhere?”

I looked again. No matter how hard I gazed, I only saw one outline that looked human. “No,” I admitted. “I only see one humanoid silhouette. Are you sure it’s Quinn?”

“Yes. I can feel his focus upon us. Rufus would feel frantic, or hopeful of rescue, and he wouldn’t be standing free like that.” Hojo shrugged. “How do you feel about setting the mansion on fire?”

I blinked past my initial surprise at his suggestion. “Don’t you want your… equipment?”

Hojo chuckled dryly. “Outdated and probably dangerous,” he answered. “It’s tempting to strap you down in there, but I wouldn’t really do it; I might get you hurt in ways I don’t plan.”

“How comforting that your madness breaks for such things,” I shot back sourly. “You aren’t strapping me down anywhere, madman.”

“I’m not?” Hojo smiled slyly. “Be on your guard, pretty Turk.”

“Stop calling me that.” I felt like hitting him. “And, I don’t think we need to burn down the mansion. The fire could go out of control and burn this entire town to the ground.”

“I’d find that appropriate. This isn’t Nibelheim, it’s just a copy.” Hojo laced his hands behind his back. “Perhaps it feels good to burn an entire town and the people in it; I’ll ask my son if I ever get to see him again.”

That was it. I slung the rifle back on my shoulder, turned to him and put both hands around his upper arms. His wiry muscles flexed as I shook him. “Snap out of that shit,” I said harshly. “You don’t think like that anymore. You’re seeking a cure for X2Geostigma, not plotting the deaths of hundreds of people, and you’re not interested in burning this stinking town!” I let go of him after a final, hard shake, and stepped back to look at him. “You get your revenge on me any way you want, but later. We have to take care of this mess right in front of us first, or we’ll never get any peace.”

Hojo looked toward the house and nodded. “Yes, you’re right.” He smiled softly. “Shall we?” 

 

The house disturbed me. So many bad memories made here, so much struggling, pain and hopelessness. Lucrecia and I pitched many fights between these walls, tilting with each other over minutiae and mountains alike. Here, the Jenova Project flourished. Here, the Turk met his end. Here, I’d lost my last grasp of humanity.

“Upper level,” Valentine rasped, holding the rifle at the ready. “I can feel he hasn’t moved.”

Yes, I felt that too. I followed him, content to rely upon his superior hunting skills. 

Up the stairs we went, the rotting, molded carpet throwing polluted dust without our every movement. I put my nose in my sleeve and then discovered that gesture useless; leather doesn’t filter much.

The strains of piano music came as we breached the landing. Valentine cast a glance at me, silently questioning. I shrugged helplessly. I had no idea what we were hearing, or what significance, if any, the music held. I could play the piano, any musical instrument I set my mind to, really. I’d never seen a piano in this house, and I figured Quinn had brought it with him.

Onward we traveled. Without conferring, we took the left-hand option and the secret stairway up. The right hand had a secret stairway downward, and that path would take us to the library, the cellars and to Valentine’s old resting place between labs one through five. We didn’t need to go there, thankfully.

I was glad the monsters did remember me, and that they left us well alone. I’d given them life, such as it was, and they remembered that in their limited way…

“This should be it,” Valentine murmured, bringing the rife up. “I can feel him here.”

I could too. But, something felt amiss. Quinn hadn’t moved since we’d spotted him. I grabbed Valentine by the sleeve. “It isn’t right,” I whispered. “It feels…off.”

“I know.” Lips set in grim determination, Valentine gave a small toss of his head. “It reeks of a trap.” He took a deep breath and kicked open the door.

The first thing we saw was Quinn. He stood in the center of the room, looking out toward the window as if sightseeing. He didn’t turn upon our entrance, nor did he even move in the slightest. Valentine leveled the rifle upon him and slid the action back. Even at this audible clicking noise, Quinn never stirred.

I walked forward. The moment I looked into the man’s eyes, I knew he was gone. Oh, not dead, not by any means, but his mind had long left. All that was left of him was his observant eyes and his bodily functions. 

“What in hell?” Valentine asked, standing beside me.

I noticed a piece of paper in Quinn’s fist. Gently, I tugged it free. “Here’s something,” I said needlessly. I unfolded it and we read together.

**In coldest ground do bones lie, but never undisturbed. In greenest forest do the living dwell, but without succor. Old oceans leave their own bones, but blood flows mobile as the wind. Ashes and dust petrify, and teeth grow weary of chewing prey.**

I stepped back. “I can’t do anything for him,” I said. “End him, Valentine.”

My companion wiped his face and then leveled the rifle. With a single shot, he completed Quinn’s life cycle. Efficiently, he slid another round to readiness and slung the gun to his back. “What does that note mean?”

“I don’t know.” I put the paper away. “More importantly, how long has Quinn been dead?”

“Not long,” Valentine answered grimly. “He wouldn’t have been concerned with eating.” He pointed to a half-eaten meal sitting on a small table. “The setting is placed for one, not two, so his dinner was interrupted without benefit of polite pretense.” He looked around curiously, his red eyes taking in the entire room in moments.

I looked down at the corpse. There, entwined in brain matter and bone fragments, were wires. I stooped and sifted through the mess, finding a tiny camera. “He had surveillance attached to his optic nerve,” I said. “It’ll be useless without his eyes.”

Valentine and I looked at each other.

This wasn’t over.


End file.
